Paula Kensu has faced numerous rejections throughout her fight to free her father from prison, but she vows to continue looking into legal holes and writing mails to the governor. Gretchen Whitmer praying for mercy.
Temujin Kensu, 61, has pleaded innocent ever since he was found guilty of first-degree murder 37 years ago, but he is n’t confident enough to see his wife’s efforts pay off.
In a phone interview with a resident of the Macomb Correctional Facility in Lenox Township, Kensu said,” I have major health problems: serious combined anemia, rheumatoid arthritis, tissue injury, shoulder injury, knees, and ankles that all need to be completely rebuilt.” ” I think I’m going to expire in around”.
Paula Kensu reported that when he visits, her husband’s stance is more beneficial.
” He does n’t talk about his medical problems with me”, she said. He appears cheerful in the mirror. He does n’t want me to believe that he is n’t returning home.
Temujin Kensu and his advocates said there’s compelling evidence that he is n’t responsible for the Nov. 5, 1986, shooting death of his ex-girlfriend’s fiancé, 20-year-old Scott Macklem, in the parking lot of St. Clair Community College in Port Huron.
Witnesses claimed they saw Kensu in the Upper Peninsula more than 400 miles away, but St. Clair County prosecutor claimed he could have flown with an aircraft there in time despite providing no specific proof. Macklem was killed with a gun, but the prosecution claimed Kensu, a member of a French ninja gang, was a victim of a French ninja gang and that no other murder weapon was used during the trial.
A jurors convicted Kensu of first-degree death. He received a life sentence in prison on August 3, 1987, with no chance of receiving a pardon.
The government is my only real hope, Kensu said, after numerous unsuccessful appeals and a 2022 analysis by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s Faith Integrity Unit that concluded there was no way to reverse the faith.
” I feel like I have a dying word”, said Kensu, whose name was Fred Freeman before he converted to Buddhism. Whitmer will serve until 2027, and I do n’t believe I’ll be able to wait long enough to elect a new governor. She has rejected every other clemency request I’ve ever made, and I do n’t see her changing her mind.
Whitmer’s director, Stacey LaRouche, said Kensu you apply for a word transmission through the Michigan Parole Board. Kensu claimed that the Parole Board has yet to hear from him after going through the second round and being rejected. A second complaint is still pending, which could take years.
By reversing the murder charges, St. Clair County Prosecutor Michael Wendling may open Kensu. But Wendling told The Detroit News he stands by the faith in the case that was first handled by his father Robert Cleland, who became a federal prosecutor before retiring next year.
Wendling and Cleland are facing a lawsuit from Paula Kensu against the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission in June. The complaint makes that Wendling allegedly acted improperly after finding out about problems with her husband’s event and that Cleland neglected to look into Temujin Kensu’s claims about his lawyer, David Dean, who eventually admitted to having cocaine addiction while defending the case. Dean, who died in 2018, was disbarred in 2001 for his substance use.
Paula Kensu’s plea was turned down by the Grievance Commission “due to the age of your problem,” according to a letter she wrote to The News on July 27.
Wendling claimed Kensu’s test was decided before he became the county’s counsel in 2005 despite having handled the case’s numerous appeals. He stands by the judgment.
I guess I’m now the subject of conversation because Mr. Freeman has all but eliminated all of his appeals, according to Wendling, on every conceivable topic. ” Either the governor will pardon him or I’ll forget the whole situation ( and drop the charges ),” the governor said. I have no opinion about whether the governor should pardon him, but I believe in the conviction, or I would n’t have defended it in the appeals”.
Wendling claimed that Kensu has filed an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court, three different 31st District Court courts, six different sections of the Michigan Court of Appeals, and two federal prosecutor requests that the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reviewed three days.
Wendling said,” I suppose I could go back a long way and second-guess the jury, the appeals court, the attorney general, and everyone else,” but I wo n’t do that. ” Mr. Freeman has had the advantage of the very best administrative personnel who have reviewed every element of this faith, and they’ve taken it before every courtroom where they have standing”.
Paula Kensu complained to the Grievance Commission in a letter that read,” Wendling childishly continues to refer to him as” Mr. Freeman.” Why is n’t he ( failing ) to address him by his proper legal name when he has been repeatedly asked to do so because it would be improper for him to misgender someone?
Paula Kensu said the information that the Grievance Commission would certainly investigate her says was unsatisfactory, but she vowed to push forward.
Years of disappointment
Other events have raised Kensu and his supporters ‘ desires over the years before causing disappointment. In 2010, Detroit U. S. District Judge Denise Page Hood ordered a new test based on prosecutorial misconduct. According to the Court, Cleland allowed a man by the name of Philip Joplin to give false witness that claimed Kensu had confessed to the death while the two men were housed in a holding cell.
Joplin later said he had received compensation for testifying against the defendant and later recanted his account, but the appeals court noted that Joplin did n’t sign his testimony speech before he passed away. The appeals court even declined to get Hood to maintain an evidentiary hearing.
His supporters ‘ hopes were revived when Nessel announced that her Faith Integrity Unit would look into Kensu’s event in 2022. However, many in the area for innocence expressed shock after the unit’s investigation revealed that Kensu was disqualified for relief because an alibi witness who testified against him after his trial was disqualified as “new evidence.”
Because the CIU’s determination was based on a constitutional complexity and did n’t target Kensu’s innocence or guilt, Paula Kensu said she thought Whitmer would give a reprimand or transmission. Her desires were boosted in part by the long-awaited community of supporters her father had, which included some Michigan politicians and law enforcement officials, including soon U.S. Senator Carl Levin and former Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack.
” Whitmer had let Temujin leave of prison immediately if she wanted to, but she refused,” according to Paula Kensu, despite all the yells at her to complete the right thing, for some reason. ” It all boils down to politicians. Anyone wants to say their errors.
When asked to comment on statements that Whitmer ignored mercy requests due to politics, her spokesperson LaRouche stated in an email that” an individual may apply to the Michigan Parole Board to obtain a pardon or transmission.” The programs are reviewed by the pardon panel on a case-by-case schedule, which may include a public hearing. The governor’s office receives their advice for evaluation and a final decision following the Parole Board’s evaluation.
Temujin Kensu criticized LaRoche’s response as “ridiculous,” noting that he had to go through it twice in 2007 and 2020,” and both days I was denied.”
Following , Whitmer’s decision in 2020 to deny Kensu’s commutation , petition, her office released a statement saying,” The clemency request for Temujin Kensu was denied, but we do n’t have anything to add, as it’s our best practice not to comment on clemency applications”.
” I believe ( Whitmer ) is waiting for me to pass away,” said Temujin Kensu. She” will just keep deceiving me until I’m gone,” she said, “because she probably believes I’m 61 and have end health problems.” She’s got her attention on the White House, and she’d rather not be embarrassed by having to pay out millions of dollars in a wrongful conviction petition and having to admit she was wrong about my ignorance”.
No transfer “makes no feeling”
Former governor Jennifer Granholm in 2007 rejected Kensu’s ask for leniency, based on the advice of the Parole Board that the plea become denied because Kensu did not show grief for the dying. Kensu claimed that he would never regret anything he did.
At his two-day commutation hearing in 2007, David Sanders, a board member at the Royal Oak-based Proving Innocence nonprofit, testified for Kensu. He said it “makes no sense” why Kensu’s attempts to get his case overturned have been denied.
According to Sanders, “we’ve seen the governor release some terrible criminals.” Everyone who examines this case agrees that it is one of the most blatantly wrongful convictions they’ve ever seen is really puzzling.
Wendling said Kensu’s advocates are “focusing on four or five things we call red herrings that were n’t relevant to the jury”.
Wendling claimed that the jury” clearly did n’t believe the alibi witnesses who claimed they saw him in the UP” because the entire chartered plane incident was an aside and only played a small role in the case. No one in the hearing of the case believes that the governor is innocent, and neither do I, in my opinion.
Inspired by column
Temujin Kensu’s case has been covered by a number of media outlets, including a 2021 story from NBC News, a BBC in England, and podcasts from nations like Australia.
Paula Kensu, a 48-year-old human resources manager at Ally Financial Services, said,” I was familiar with the murder because I grew up in the area where the victim grew up.” ” I went to the same high school as the victim, ( Croswell Lexington High School in Croswell, in Michigan’s Thumb ), and taught business administration in St. Clair Community College, where the victim was killed”.
Paula Kensu read an article by Detroit News columnist Nolan Finley that ran on Christmas Day 2019 and discovered she was n’t aware of Kensu’s wrongful conviction claim.
Nolan’s Christmas article was a” so wrong that I started digging into the case,” said Paula Kensu. ” I reached out to Proving Innocence and asked if there was anything I could do to help. Then Temujin reached out to me. Before COVID arrived, I visited him about a dozen times and saw him about twice.
The couple were married on Nov. 4, 2022. Temujin Kinsu’s second union was. His first wife, who he wed in 1990, passed away in 2012 from cancer.
” I went through a mourning period, and it took seven years, but after Paula saw Nolan’s column and we started talking, I opened up, and we fell in love”, he said. She makes a lot of things up for me, and she’s crazy about me. She seems to never sleep, in fact.
Kensu and his advocates were encouraged when Nessel’s Conviction Integrity Unit agreed to investigate the case after a request by the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic. Because Nessel’s CIU director, Robyn Frankel, claimed she had a conflict in the case, Valerie Newman, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Conviction Integrity Unit head, was asked to investigate the claim.
Beth Stier, a new witness, who had been dating Kensu the night of the murder, was one of the issues Newman looked into. Police did not disclose during the trial that they’d interviewed Stier, Kensu’s advocates discovered her years later through a public records request.
In a letter to Kensu’s attorney, Iman Syed, the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic co-director, Newman claimed Stier would not have provided additional details to support Kensu’s innocence claim. Kensu’s innocence or guilt were not determined by the CIU.
” The AG guidelines mandate there must be new evidence supporting factual innocence”, Newman wrote. Evidence that is not at all presented at trial or in post-conviction appeals is referred to as “new evidence.”
Nessel supporters object to the decision.
The standard used by Nessel’s office to determine what constituted “new evidence” was panned by people that included self-described Nessel supporters U. S. Reps. Andy Levin, D-Bloomfield Township, and Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, and Michigan Sen. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit.
In a statement released on May 25, 2022, the lawmakers stated that” Attorney General Nessel and her team do remarkable work day in and day out to defend the rights of Michigan’s citizens.” However, the outcome was predetermined by the CIU’s evaluation of the Kensu case, in our opinion, the wrong outcome.
” Kensu could not have committed and did not in fact commit the crime for which the state is taking away the entire rest of his life,” Levin, Tlaib and Chang said in their written statement”. And the persistent opposition to this by current and former local law enforcement officials does nothing to alter the situation itself.
The statement concluded by mentioning that the governor has the authority to grant pardons under the Michigan Constitution.
” We pray that those with the power to grant relief conduct a full review and grant relief to Mr. Kensu,” the statement said.
Levin, who was removed from office in 2022, said to The News,” I still think Kensu is innocent, but I have n’t heard anything new about the case.”
Ellen Heinitz, Chang’s chief of staff, declined to comment. Emails to Tlaib’s staff were not returned.
denied records requests
The Attorney General’s Office requested a week after the CIU’s decision to review any reports and/or other written materials related to the Temujin Kensu case in an open records request from The News. ” Nessel’s office claimed complying with the request would cost$ 11, 220.86.
A week after the CIU decision, Proving Innocence also requested” the investigative report/documentation, which was largely prepared by Assistant AG Valerie Newman.”
The Department did not comply with your request for Proving Innocence because, according to a letter from Nessel’s office on July 14, 2022,” the Department does not possess a record that is responsive to what you describe.” … ( T ) he Conviction Integrity Unit does not prepare summary reports but may issue a closing letter to a claimant or the claimant’s attorney notifying them that the CIU is not moving forward on the case.”
Proving Innocence sued to review the report, according to Sanders, and they fought in court to prevent us from seeing the report they had originally stated was n’t real.
Because the report falls under the “agent work product” category and is not subject to the open records law, Michigan Court of Claims Judge Brock Swartzle ruled on April 14, 2023.
” It makes you wonder what they’re hiding,” Sanders said”. Dana Nessel claims to be a transparent person, but she has worked tirelessly to conceal this report. ” Why?”
Nessel’s spokesperson, Kimberly Bush, said in an email:” The Department of Attorney General has received multiple FOIA requests for this internal advisory memo, which have been denied under the exemptions allowed for attorney work-product. The Court of Claims ruled that the internal memo is a work-product and exempt from production in a court hearing in 2023.
not losing faith
Paula Kensu said the repeated setbacks have taken a toll, but she said she has n’t lost faith.
Every holiday, Whitmer writes to me asking her to find the strength in her heart to let me leave my husband. I believe we can create a powerful enough movement to eventually lead the righteous decision.
Temujin Kensu said he’ll continue working toward his dream of” moving into a cabin with my wife in the woods away from everybody, “although he said he’s unsure if he’ll live to see it come true.
He declared,” I’ll fight until the day I die.” I simply do n’t trust this governor,”.
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