Exonerated by a mug shot: Highland Park man freed after 37 years in prison

After nearly 37 years of professing his innocence from prison, losing appeals three times in a row, Paul Clark officially left court Tuesday a free man.

The tether was removed. There would be no retrial.

The persistent Clark could finally begin a new life with his children, who grew up without him, after convincing the courts on his fourth try that he was wrongfully convicted of murdering a man in 1987 because a crucial piece of evidence was withheld from him: a mug shot of a man with a deep gash on his face.

The mug shot — buried deep in the abyss of old criminal files — was not discovered until 2020.

It would ultimately help exonerate Clark, who long argued another man, the man with the scar, was responsible for the crime he was blamed for.

"There is a significant possibility the defendant may actually be innocent," Wayne County Circuit Judge Mark Slavens wrote in an April opinion, concluding Clark was "denied favorable evidence" that may have produced a different result at trial.

In addition to the mug shot, Slavens also took into consideration two affidavits signed by an inmate who alleged the man with the scar had confessed to him years ago in prison that he had killed the man in Clark's case.

But like the mug shot, Clark's jury didn't hear about any alleged jailhouse confession, either.

'I have waited for this day my entire life'

While the judge initially ruled that Clark was entitled to a new trial, and released him on a tether in May, it wasn't until Tuesday that Clark was officially granted his freedom after the prosecutor's office decided not to retry the case. Without explaining why, the prosecution announced it was dismissing the charges.

"I am so amazed right now. I just can't believe it. I have waited for this day my entire life," said Clark's daughter, 36-year-old DeAngelic Clark, who was born shortly after her father was sentenced to life in prison without parole for a 1987 Highland Park murder.

"I feel like a little girl in a candy store all over again," she said after hugging her father in a hallway at Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in downtown Detroit. "Like — it's beautiful. And every day I'm crying because I just really can't believe it's really real."

Clark's son, who turned 2 on the same day his father was sent to prison, also was overcome with emotion.

"He was taken away from me that very day, so to have him 36 years later is amazing," Deshawn Clark said Tuesday as he joined his father in a group family hug, later exclaiming: "Now we can go fishing!"

Integrity unit discovers crucial mug shot

According to court records, here is how Clark's criminal case came about:

In 1987, two men were murdered while out soliciting prostitutes in Highland Park. They were shot and killed after leaving the same bar, during what police described as robberies gone wrong: When the victims put up a fight, they were shot dead.

The murders occurred within two blocks of each other, but roughly three months apart.

Weeks after the first murder, a man named Alex Scott was found with a gun near the scene of that crime. He was arrested and had his mug shot taken. It featured a long scar on his face. According to police, the first victim was found with a knife in his hand.

Scott, though, was not charged in that crime. Rather, he was charged in the second man's murder and eventually pleaded guilty. In his guilty plea, he also admitted to conspiring with a prostitute to identify other potential victims in the same Highland Park neighborhood.

Another three decades would pass before Clark learned anything about that conviction, or the man named Alex Scott and his incriminating gash on his face.

Clark, who was charged and convicted in the murder of the first man, long argued that he was innocent. But it wasn't until 2020 that his appeal would gain any traction. That's when the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office Conviction Integrity Unit discovered Scott's mug shot.

A scar on his face

According to court record's, Scott's mug shot, "showed he had a fresh and deep wound to the left side of his face, as if he had been recently slashed with a knife."

Clark, in his appeal, noted the man he was charged with murdering was found with a hook knife in his right hand.

But his jury never heard anything about another potential suspect with a gash on his face.

"The Highland Park police were aware of, or should have been aware of, the similarities between (Clark's) case and Alex Scott's," Judge Slavens wrote in his opinion, adding the police "had a duty to notify (Clark) that a similar crime was committed in the same area."

The judge also held that the prosecution's failure to disclose this mug shot "undermines the confidence in the outcome of his trial."

Witness accounts helped the prosecution build its case against Clark, who was charged with fatally shooting a man who was seen leaving a bar with a woman who had been offering men sex acts in exchange for money. According to an eyewitness, as described in court records, the man was shot while walking with the alleged prostitute outside, though when the shooter approached, the woman kept walking away from the scene.

Clark maintains he was never at the bar that night, and that the witnesses identified the wrong man.

As noted by Judge Slavens in his opinion, Clark and Scott look different on a number of fronts: Clark is 20 pounds heavier, lighter skinned, and walks with a distinctive limp.

Clark received the stiffest punishment possible in his case: a life sentence, without the possibility of parole.

Scott also received a life sentence and remains behind bars.

Inmate breaks silence: there was a jailhouse confession

Clark's freedom was ultimately secured by the Michigan Innocence Clinic, which unlike most such clinics, focuses on cases where there is no DNA to be tested. Specifically, it was MIC attorney Elizabeth Cole who fought for years to prove what Clark had long been arguing — that he was wrongfully convicted for another person's crime because the jury lacked two key pieces of evidence.

In addition to the mug shot, Clark revived his appeal with the help of a friend and fellow inmate named Dwight Hill, who signed affidavits alleging that Scott confessed to him that he was responsible for both Highland Park murders. Hill, though, didn't share this information until 29 years after Clark was convicted. As for why he took so long, Hill said he kept quiet because he feared Scott, and waited until after his release in 2016 to share this information.

Hill signed two affidavits supporting Clark. The judge noted that while these affidavits are potentially biased as Hill and Clark are friends, the possibility that they are true "further corroborates the plethora of evidence submitted by (Clark) to prove he may not have committed this crime."

Clark, meanwhile, isn't done fighting. He has a civil suit in the works over what his lawyer called a wrongful incarceration.

"Today we witnessed justice," civil rights attorney Shereef Akeel said after Clark had the tether officially removed. "Unfortunately, there are many other innocent men and women fighting to prove their innocence."

But, he added: "Today is Paul Clark's day."

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Exonerated by a mug shot: Highland Park man freed after 37 years in prison