Davontae Sanford might’ve been a man when he was exonerated, but he was no man when he was wrongfully framed, forced into a confession and convicted for a quadruple murder he did not commit.
He was just a boy — a black boy, completely blind in one eye and developmentally impaired — who was found by police wandering in a Detroit neighborhood in his pajamas the night the murder took place in a nearby drug house.
^^^^^^^Vincent Smothers, who was later found guilty for the slayings, was barred from confessing at Sanford’s trial.
He wasn’t bloody. He didn’t have a murder weapon. He wasn’t covered in gunshot residue from the dozen bullets he would’ve had to fire to kill four people. He wasn’t seen going in and out of the house by eyewitnesses. He wasn’t known as a local thug who’d kill you if you crossed him.
He was just young and black, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Only 14 years old, Davontae Sanford, after being picked up by police in his pajamas and taken to a local precinct, was interrogated for two days without an attorney or any family present. Finally, Sanford confessed. Any child under so much pressure would’ve considered the same thing.
Think back to when you were 14 years old and imagine what it would be like to spend every day of every year for nine years in prison for murders you didn’t commit. When I was 14, I barely had my first real kiss, still loved playing video games and had sleepovers with my buddies. From ages 14 to 23, I was assaulted, had three spinal surgeries, recovered, graduated high school, moved to Atlanta to attend Morehouse College, met the love of my life, got married, became student government president at Morehouse, traveled to Africa for the first time, earned my college degree, got my first real job as a school teacher and became a father. Those nine years might’ve been the most formative years of my life.
