Mich. Inmate Representing Himself in Court Convinces Judge to Vacate Conviction: Here's How He Did It

Mar. 15, 2025

Gregory Dean Tucker.Photo:Michigan Department of Corrections via AP

Michigan Department of Corrections via AP

Gregory Dean Tucker, 65, filed a habeas corpus claim from his cell at Parnall Correctional Facility in Jackson, Mich. No eyewitnesses reported seeing Tucker enter the Ferndale, Mich. salon where the break-in occurred in September 2016. Furthermore, his fingerprints weren’t found inside the studio, and no surveillance footage recorded the incident.

However, prosecutors linked him to the crime scene at the time because he was one of two people whose trace DNA was found on a Coke bottle in the salon.

Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse in Detroit.Raymond Boyd/Getty

Raymond Boyd/Getty

In the 14-page opinion, Lawson – who vacated the 65-year-old’s convictions for breaking and entering with intent to commit larceny and being an habitual offender – wrote that: “the presence of Tucker’s DNA on the bottle did not lead ineluctably to the conclusion that he was present at the crime scene.”

When she returned at 5 a.m., she found her salon “ransacked” with “much of her inventory stolen,” including about $10,000 of beauty supplies, a television, a computer and a clock, which had been taken off the wall, according to the judge.

Ashford eyed a Coke bottle and a cigarette lighter, which she did not recall being there when she had left the previous afternoon, although she later testified that clients sometimes brought in such items.

Prosecutors built their entire case around the Coke bottle.

But Lawson wrote in his opinion this summer that there was no evidence to substantiate Tucker being the one who had left the bottle at the scene.

“There also was no evidence offered at trial about when his DNA was or could have been deposited on the bottle,” Lawson writes in his opinion. “And that gap in the proofs is fatal to the state’s case.”

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“A pop bottle has monetary value,” Tucker said, referencing the state’s 10-cent deposit law. “You can leave a bottle on the east side and it can end up on the west side that same day.”

Anne Yantus, a lawyer who is not connected to the case but worked for three decades in the State Appellate Defender Office, told the AP that an inmate representing himself through the last resort federal appeals process known as a habeas claim is a challenging feat.

“I’m just impressed that this is a man who had enough confidence in himself and his legal skills to represent himself with a habeas claim,” she noted to the outlet.

The judge noted in his decision that while Tucker should not continue serving time for the vacated convictions, he is also “serving a sentence on another conviction.”

Meanwhile, the Michigan’s Department of Attorney General is “seeking an appeal,” of the overturned case Danny Wimmer of the department tells PEOPLE, adding that the department filed a notice of appeal in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Aug. 27.

Wimmer says Tucker will remain behind bars “on other convictions” pending that appeal.

A search of his Michigan Department of Correctionsonline recordson Thursday, Sept. 5 shows three active sentences for which Tucker is serving time including two breaking and entering cases in Oakland and Wayne counties, as well as a stolen property case out of Oakland.

source: people.com