Davontae Sanford's lawyer seeks to have conviction tossed out
By SUZETTE HACKNEY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
A Detroit Police chaplain testified during a court hearing today that the person who fired a gun at him moments after a shooting on his street was at least 6 inches taller than a teen who is imprisoned for the 2007 quadruple killings.
The Rev. Jesse King testified that he saw two people wearing long black coats and ski masks seconds after four people were killed Sept. 17, 2007, in a drug house on Runyon on Detroit’s east side. King said the taller of the two men, whom he described as being at least 5-feet-ll, used a rifle to fire three rounds into King’s house as he watched from his porch. King returned fire and retreated inside.
“When I seen them coming up I knew something wasn’t right,” said King, 60. “Instinct kicked in and I stepped back into my home.”
Police have said Davontae Sanford, who was 14 at the time of the shooting in the 19700 block of Runyon, told them he and his friends plotted to rob a drug house and wound up shooting those inside. But Sanford’s appellate attorney said investigators in both written reports and in court testimony have acknowledged that Sanford is only 5-feet-5.
“This is just further evidence that Davontae could not have committed these shootings,” said attorney Kim McGinnis at the appellate hearing where he is seeking to overturn the guilty verdict and grant Sanford a new trial..
In October, a retired Detroit homicide commander provided an alibi for Sanford. William Rice, a 25-year veteran, testified that Sanford with him at Sanford’s aunt’s house for dinner at the time of the shooting.
Vincent Smothers, suspected of being a hit man, also has confessed to the killings, but has not been charged. Smothers has confessed to killing at least seven people, including the wife of a Detroit Police sergeant. Police say he may have acted in concert with Sanford.
According to his confession, Sanford said he and three other suspects had guns, and he used an M14 rifle that he tossed after the shooting. Sanford also confessed that he fired the rifle, which he said did not belong to him, at King after the shooting.
King said he could not describe the shooter other than his outerwear and height. “My focus was on my life, defending my home and my territory,” he said in Wayne County Circuit Court.
McGinnis has argued that Sanford, now 17, was likely fed information by homicide investigators and later included those details in his confession. Sanford has a learning disability and was reading at a third-grade level at the time of the incident. He is also blind in one eye.
After a two-day bench trial in March 2008, Sanford accepted a deal and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and using a firearm during a felony. In April 2008, he was sentenced to 37 to 90 years in prison.
Sanford is in prison at the Thumb Correctional Facility in Lapeer. Court proceedings are expected to continue in Wayne County Judge Brian Sullivan’s courtroom in January.
Contact SUZETTE HACKNEY: shackney@freepress.com.
FREE DAVONTAE SANFORD