25-year-old murder conviction of two Detroit brothers tossed out

http://www.freep.com/article/20120727/NEWS05/307270121/25-year-old-murder-conviction-two-Detroit-brothers-tossed-out

July 27, 2012 By Jim Schaefer Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Raymond Highers, wearing bright yellow Wayne County Jail scrubs, folded his hands Thursday and clamped his eyes shut when it became clear what the judge was about to do.

"We have new evidence ... " Wayne County Circuit Judge Lawrence Talon began.

Then the sniffling started, from one or two supporters in the back row of the packed courtroom on the sixth floor of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in downtown Detroit.

"The court finds the newly discovered evidence to be credible and reliable. ... "

Raymond Highers and his brother, Thomas Highers, both imprisoned for a quarter-century for a murder they long maintained they did not commit, had just had their convictions wiped out.

.....

In a ruling from the bench that lasted about an hour, Talon said that new witnesses who never went to police about the shotgun slaying of Robert Karey, 65, offered enough new evidence during the hearing to erase the 1988 decision by then-Judge Terrance Boyle to convict the brothers and sentence them to life in prison.

Older brother Thomas is now 46. Raymond just turned the same age.

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It was not until 2009 and a chance encounter on Facebook that information surfaced about a carload of 1987 Grosse Pointe North High School graduates who said they were at Karey's house the night he was shot.

Four of those former classmates told Talon under oath what they remembered.
.....

The brothers' lawyers said the witnesses never went to police for various reasons: fear for their safety, of being somehow linked to the killing or of their parents finding out where they were that night. Janet Napp, lawyer for Raymond Highers, said in court that the new witnesses were "just kids" at the time who hadn't yet developed "a moral compass."

.....

Kevin Zieleniewski, a lawyer and former Detroiter who now lives near Washington, D.C., started the push to find the new witnesses in 2009 after he happened upon a Facebook posting about the Highers brothers being in prison.

He grew up in that neighborhood, and the post reminded him of an old conversation about someone else killing Karey. Using his own money to travel to Detroit, Zieleniewski started digging, and was soon joined by lawyers and private investigators who found the new witnesses.