Rick Wershe's attorney says helping your government could get you a life sentence. Just say no.
Rick Wershe was arrested at age 17 for possession of cocaine and sentenced to mandatory life without parole according to the 650-lifer Law in Michigan. He is currently the longest serving juvenile drug offender in the history of Michigan.
During the 1980s, crack cocaine had turned parts of Detroit into racially divided combat zones.17 year old Wershe had become known as the only white drug dealer from the black East Side and an urban legend in the Detroit press who boldly drove a Jeep labeled "The Snowman". He allegedly imported kilos of cocaine from Miami.
It was revealed after his arrest, that Wershe started working with the local authorities as a paid informant at age 14. He was successful in befriending the younger brother of a black drug lord and eventually in running his own small time wholesale operation.
Time passed and while Detroit police were paying Wershe well to rat-out neighborhood drug dealers, he was living the good life including women, cars, clothes and even a trip to watch Marvin Hagler fight in Las Vegas.
But then someone he snitched on got suspicious and had Wershe shot. He recovered from the wound to his abdomen but Detroit police became nervous and abandoned him as an informant.
As an invincible 17 year old might predictably do, Wershe decided to continue selling drugs but for real this time, leading to his arrest and conviction in 1987.
While in prison, Wershe again was asked to again serve as an informant by the FBI and the prosecutor's office to reduce his time in prison.
The information ultimately provided by Wershe resulted in the conviction of a number of corrupt police officers in the Detroit area and crooked relatives of a former mayor. Wershe also exposed the parties involved in a murder cover-up.
The 650-Lifer Law was rescinded in 1998 and Wershe became eligible for parole.
For all of his assistance, Wershe was stabbed in the back at his Parole Board Hearing in 2003 by both Detroit Police and US government officials.
Back in 1987, prior to Wershe's arrest, and while he was still informing on his drug associates to the Detroit police, Wershe overheard drug dealers discussing that they had accidentally killed a 13 year old boy. He also learned that a significant amount of money was being discussed to overlook this accidental shooting.
Wershe, already in contact with police soon called his contacts to report this information. Now Wershe had become a homicide informant.
The next morning it was discovered that a call had been placed from the dealer to the unlisted direct line of Police Commander Gilbert R. Hill.
After this story got out, suspicions about Hill’s alleged role in the case hung over Detroit for years.
So in 2003, instead of providing the support they promised for his help, all of the Wayne County officials submitted negative letters or testimony about Wershe effectively killing his chances for parole.
In a sworn affidavit, one of the Detroit police witnesses later said he never heard of Wershe before the Parole Board Hearing yet was enlisted by Hill to testify against him.
"I embarrassed a lot of people," said Wershe. "All I did was what I was asked and all I did was tell the truth."
FBI undercover agent Mike Castro believes that Rick Wershe is still in prison because he broke the all-important rule. When Wershe worked with him on the investigation, “it stung” the Detroit police and their allies in power. “It embarrassed them and it showed what they really were.”
In September 2015, it appeared that Wershe's 28 year nightmare was about to end when the Wayne County Judge Dana Hathaway (right) was ready to re-sentence him to time served.
But prosecutor Kym Worthy appealed and the case then was delayed until it could be heard by the Michigan Supreme Court.
Eight months later the Michigan Supreme Court issued a single paragraph ruling stating they chose not to interfere with the prosecutor's ruling thereby denying Wershe's chances for re-sentencing.
After the ruling, Wershe's Pro Bono attorney Ralph Musili stated, "They're not going to let him out ... The only difference between his case and all of the other cases [where the defendants are now free] is that he cooperated with the government."
The United States Supreme Court has let Rick Wershe down, according to renowned attorney Alan Dershowitz.
"It's a violation of a spirit, if not the letter of the cruel and unusual punishment provision. This sentence has so many constitutional problems that one would hope the court would look at it very skeptically," he said.
President Obama is pushing to re-sentence and release juvenile offenders, but Michigan won't even consider it.
"This is a state case, so the President doesn't have a direct power to order the release. But you would think that anybody who would be looking at what the President has been looking at would say this is the perfect case for a release now," said Dershowitz.
Of course, Governor Rick Snyder, meanwhile, is sitting on the sidelines. "No governor has ever been elected because he paroled somebody, but many politicians lose their jobs because they paroled somebody," said Dershowitz.
The state parole board is either afraid to act or has been told not to. "You can whisper to a parole board. I'm not saying that is what happened here, but we certainly know prosecutors and others can get to parole boards," said Dershowitz.
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Read Full Story: The Trials of White Boy Rick by Evan Hughes
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As voters, citizens, taxpayers and bystanders, we as a society have inhumanely punished thousands of nonviolent people. Currently Washington DC and 30 states have compensation statutes for wrongfully convicted inmates. Congress’ recommended amount is $63,000 for each year served. On the other hand, overly sentenced victims who in many cases have suffered equally or worse typically receive $20 and a bus ticket if they are fortunate enough to ever be released.
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No Harsh Justice inmate has ever been convicted of a violent crime.