Ricahrd Wershe Jr. in court Sept. 4
Legal scholar and super attorney Alan Dershowitz tells WDIV's Kevin Dietz that he's going to help Richard Wershe Jr.'s attorney in the painstaking effort to try and set Wershe free.
"This is a case that cries out for re-sentencing and time served for release. He's served far, far, far too much time already for what he was convicted of doing as a very young man," Dershowitz tells Dietz who traveled to New York to conduct an interview.
Wershe, who earned the name "White Boy Rick," was first arrested at age 17. He's now Michigan's longest serving non-violent juvenile offender at age 46, having served 28 years for a drug trafficking conviction in Detroit. He was originally sentenced to a mandatory life without parole under a state law that was later changed. He was then sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, but the parole board has repeatedly rejected his requests to go free.
Last September, Wayne County Circuit Judge Dana M. Hathaway set a resentencing hearing for Wershe. In all likelihood, she would have sentenced him to time served. But Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who has portrayed Wershe as a dangerous criminal, successfully got the Michigan Court of Appeals to nix the resentencing. Wershe's challenge is now before the state Supreme Court.
"One might at least have hope that they will see the thing in context and say to themselves, 'Oh my God, young man, drug offense, look at how much time he spent. That doesn't make sense,'" Dershowitz told WDIV.
"The idea that he is being kept in jail because of something they know but won't share with the general public is completely antagonist to American democratic principles," said Dershowitz.
"When I read the record on this case, I said something's going on that I can't understand. This is a perfect candidate for parole considering how young he was and what he did and his background and his record in prison with the one blemish of the guilty plea. You would think he'd be an ideal person to let out with the prison overcrowding. Nobody thinks he's gonna engage in predatory crime or hurt anybody. "
Watch the interview with Dershowitz here.
