FairPlay EP5 | Mike Ware. Fighting for Lydell Grant

FairPlay | Challenging Wrongful Convictions in America

June 1, 2021 | Imran Siddiqui | JusticeNews.Net

Lydell Grant spent more than 9 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, but being free now, safe in the comfort of his home in Houston Texas, didn't come without a fight. It took him a decade to break free from the chains of a Cruel Prison-System where he was unjustly incarcerated for almost a decade.

On this journey Lydell didn't fight alone. His attorney Mike Ware was there to pull some hard punches, and some of them, landed right on their opponents faces and bled and broke a few noses and bones.

Mike Ware is a seasoned criminal defense Lawyer based out of Fort Worth in Texas. Mike is also an adjunct professor at the Texas A&M School of Law and is the Executive Director of the Innocence Project of Texas. You can read more about his work on Mike Ware Law.

Lydell Grant was arrested for the 2010 murder of Aaron Scheerhoorn outside a nightclub in Houston’s Montrose district. Six eyewitnesses, looking at a photo lineup, identified Grant as the killer. And in the words of Michael Hall, a reporter at TexasMonthly.com, Grant swore he was innocent. “We have six eyewitnesses that can positively identify you as the killer,” Grant remembers a detective telling him. “I don’t care if you have six hundred witnesses,” he said. “I didn’t kill him.” Six eyewitnesses testified against Grant at trial and he was convicted in 2012.

According to the Harris County District Attorney's Office, Lydell Grant was wrongfully accused in the 2010 stabbing death of Aaron Scheerhoorn outside a Montrose bar in downtown Houston. Jermarico Carter, turned out to be the real killer, with DNA evidence, and who confessed to the murder almost a decade later. Lydell was out on bail in 2019 and then in 2021 Texas board of appeals declared Grant innocent and finally exonerated.

Mike touched on many critical issues related to the bitter realities of the U.S. justice system. From the role of a spoon-fed media, or the corruption of judges and prosecutors and a widespread sickness called "Evidence Tampering". I asked Mike that knowing Grant is not his first and hopefully won't be his last exoneree, why is it so tough to get an innocent man out?

Check out The JBlog. Listen to the discussion on FairPlay at JusticeNews.Net/FairPlay or visit FairPlay.Show.

Peace.