Michael Lee McCormick has been on Tennessee’s death row for 17 years, but a recent court deci­sion throw­ing out the remain­ing evi­dence against him could result in his free­dom. Judge Doug Meyer ruled that tapes con­tain­ing con­ver­sa­tions between McCormick and an under­cov­er police offi­cer who had befriend­ed him were inad­mis­si­ble due to ​“police mis­con­duct.” Meyer not­ed that McCormick, who is an alco­holic, had con­tin­u­al­ly denied his involve­ment in the crime ​“until the author­i­ties made him depen­dent upon them for his alco­hol. Under all these cir­cum­stances, it is clear that the cru­cial moti­vat­ing fac­tor behind the defen­dan­t’s state­ments were the police mis­con­duct in ques­tion.” The rul­ing went on to state that Chattanooga Police ​“con­spired with the Georgia parole offi­cer to place the known alco­holic defen­dant in a manip­u­la­tive liv­ing sit­u­a­tion.” The state had main­ly con­vict­ed McCormick based on a hair found on the vic­tim that was linked to him and on the record­ed state­ments thrown out by Meyer’s rul­ing. The DNA evi­dence was pre­vi­ous­ly dis­cred­it­ed because more sophis­ti­cat­ed test­ing found that the hair did not come from McCormick. McCormick remains in prison await­ing a court rul­ing on the pros­e­cu­tion’s appeal involv­ing the loss of the last key piece of evi­dence in the case. (The Chattanoogan, October 13, 2003). See Innocence.

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