The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Impeach Judge Carol Kuhnke

Posted on | June 23, 2021 | Comments Off on Impeach Judge Carol Kuhnke

A Michigan judge last year turned loose an accused murderer who is now suspected of killing two people in Detroit, and is back in jail.

Detroit police on Tuesday named Orlando Whitfield, 32, as a person of interest in the gruesome slaying of a “31-year-old man and his 27-year-old girlfriend inside a home on the city’s northwest side. . . . The couple’s 9-month-old infant was luckily found unharmed inside.”

The Detroit Free Press reports:

Last year, when a judge decided to release the man accused in her sister’s slaying ahead of trial, Amanda Edmunds was beside herself. “Who’s to say he’s not going to get out, cut his freaking tether off and then just disappear?” she said.
On Tuesday, her voice was sharp as she spoke of the Washtenaw County judge with the knowledge the man not only cut his GPS tether last week, then turned himself in, but was now named as a person of interest in a Detroit double-fatal shooting discovered in-between on Monday.
Amanda Edmunds, 33, of Ypsilanti said Washtenaw Circuit Judge Carol Kuhnke needs to be held accountable for the actions of the 32-year-old Ypsilanti area man, Orlando Whitfield, as “no person in their right mind” would let a murder suspect out. And, meanwhile, his attorney, Erika Julien, said both her client and Kuhnke are innocent.
“Judge Kuhnke did the right thing,” Julien said. “She did what due process in our Constitution calls for and it was a tough call and I understand that, but she did the right thing. It’s a case-by-case basis.”
Kuhnke said in an email Tuesday, “I wish I could” but that she could not comment on a pending case.
Whitfield is accused in the January 2018 shooting death of 25-year-old Marissa Edmunds in Ypsilanti, which officials believe took place during a robbery that also left her boyfriend wounded.
Whitfield was denied bond when he was arraigned that same month on one count of open murder, four counts of armed robbery and one count possessing a firearm in the commission of a felony.
More than two years later, in May 2020, Kuhnke ordered Whitfield be released from custody. She cited delays in his case that had left him behind bars for 28 months while presumed innocent and concerns that COVID-19 was expected to worsen that problem.
While Amanda Edmunds last year said Whitfield was behind the case delays, citing, among other issues, his change of attorneys, Julien said the discovery in the case was incredibly lacking by the time she was appointed by the court to represent Whitfield, more than a year after the case had been opened. . . .
Julien said she received notice mid-week last week that Whitfield had cut his tether.
He was in touch with her shortly after however — she believes it was within 24 hours — about turning himself in, she said. She said he panicked for his family and cut his tether due to an increase in threats against him related to the murder case.
Worried about him being taken back into custody safely given his status as a homicide suspect who cut his tether, they worked on a plan to safely return him to the jail, she said.
She was preparing to walk him into the Washtenaw County Jail on Tuesday when she got a call from a reporter about the Detroit shooting, she said.

Here’s the thing: Orlando Whitfield is a career criminal. So far as is known, he has never done anything in his life except commit crimes. When he was arrested for the murder of Marissa Edmunds, Whitfield had only been out of prison for two months “after serving time for a 2007 assault with intent to commit sexual penetration. He previously served probationary sentences for fleeing police and operating with an invalid license or allowing a person with a suspended license to drive in Wayne County, corrections records show.” Oh, and while he is jail awaiting his murder trial, Whitfield was also charged with making a “shank.”

I’m sure you’re wondering, what kind of judge would turn this guy loose? Well, (a) last year, Joe Biden got 72% of the vote in Washtenaw County, and (b) Judge Kuhnke is a Democrat who, when she was elected in 2012, was “the first openly LGBT judge elected by the people in Michigan.”




 

Category: Crime, Michigan

Comments

Comments are closed.