Michigan
Arson convictions are getting thrown out. Experts blame ‘junk science’
Changes in fire science drive arson case reversals
Updated fire science prompts arson exonerations and retrials in Michigan — 8+ cases; one Detroit man got a new trial.
Evolving fire science is calling into question some arson convictions in Michigan, with several people being granted new trials or being exonerated after their previous convictions were thrown out.
At least eight people have been exonerated or have received new trials across the state since 2012 based on what the Michigan Innocence Clinic calls “junk science” or what it considers debunked investigative methods. Some of those include what experts now say are discredited practices, such as interpreting physical markers like alleged accelerant pour patterns as being a sign of arson, a sheen on water meaning an accelerant was used or an arson dog alerting to the presence of an accelerant without a lab corroborating it.
Another outdated theory is that melted aluminum under a door sill means gas indicates arson because gas had to have been poured, resulting in a fire so hot that it melted the precious metal, experts said.
Most of the exonerations were for arsons that resulted in people’s deaths, which is what the Innocence Clinic focuses on.
One of those cases involves a Detroit man who was granted a new trial in March after serving nine years in prison for allegedly setting his ex-girlfriend’s home on fire. A Wayne County judge found his 2017 arson conviction relied on a “flawed, unreliable and scientifically invalid fire investigation.”
Penalties for arson cases can be severe. First-degree arson is punishable by any number of years in prison up to life behind bars, while second-degree arson can result in up to 20 years in prison.
Imran Syed, a law professor at the University of Michigan and co-director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, estimated more than 1,000 people across the country have been wrongfully convicted of arson based on flawed science.
“I’d hope fewer and fewer people are being charged today based on junk fire science, but I know it’s not going to be zero,” Syed said. “We still see people getting it wrong, but we see them kind of acknowledging it, trying to say why (their old technique) fits in the new guidelines, trying to do old techniques under old standards.”
Some local fire departments have their own fire investigators, who often receive specialized training. Others will seek help from sheriff’s offices or the Michigan State Police, which have offered formal fire‑investigation training since 1980 and have trained more than 2,000 investigators.
Westland Assistant Chief Fire Marshal Kelly Eggers said it was “news to me” that some fire investigation techniques have been debunked or are no longer seen as valid. Westland has three fire investigators.
“From my perspective, not much has changed,” Eggers said. “There’s a technology piece that helps us document scenes, making it a lot easier as far as specifically photographic evidence.”
Taking a second look at arson convictions
To prove arson in Michigan, prosecutors must show that a defendant damaged or destroyed a structure, dwelling or personal property by fire or explosives; that the fire was deliberately and intentionally set; and that the defendant acted deliberately and maliciously with the intent to burn, damage or destroy the property.
Fire investigator Robert Trenkle of Redford Township is well-versed in fire investigations, working across the country to take a second look at potentially faulty arson convictions. He questioned the ability of some fire departments to adequately investigate arson cases, especially smaller departments.
Trenkle was a Detroit fire investigator for more than two decades and said he knows he has more experience investigating arsons than most, given Detroit’s history, which includes hundreds of annual Devil’s Night arsons around Halloween from the 1980s through the early 2000s.
He said he often sees investigators who either don’t know what they’re doing or inaccurately label fires as arson.
“There’s nothing wrong with saying I don’t know (what caused a fire),” Trenkle said. “It’s so simple to not be wrong. If you don’t know it’s an arson, if you don’t know it’s accidental, it’s OK. ‘I don’t know’ doesn’t put people in jail and doesn’t stop them from getting insurance claims.”
Small towns, especially, are more prone to this, Trenkle contended, since their employees spend their careers “not doing and not learning” fire investigation techniques.
In the 1980s and ’90s, Syed said they could argue that the people involved may not have known better. But in more recent cases, people should know the science and some techniques they’re using are outdated, he said.
“I have no doubt there are people conducting unscientific investigations today, either because they’re unaware of the science or because, despite the science, they think they know better,” Syed said.
Richard Meier, a fire investigator with Palmetto, Florida-based Meier Fire Investigation, said he, too, sees investigators using old or bad science.
“In cases like that, somebody is being charged with a crime that never actually occurred,” Meier said. “Even when I started getting involved in fire investigations 15 years ago, there were still people kicking and screaming and being drug into the 21st century who didn’t want to change their ways. … I have done a number of cases where, fortunately to date, I’ve been able to keep people out of prison when it’s not an actual crime.”
Westland’s Eggers said it’s far tougher to pin the arson on a specific person than to prove that arson occurred. He said that when investigating an arson, he will try to identify potential ignition sources and develop a hypothesis about how the source may have come into contact with the burned areas. He’ll collect evidence samples and send them to the Michigan State Police’s laboratory so lab employees can test for accelerants.
Eggers said arsons are “more prevalent than you may expect.” In 2025, he estimated Westland had about 50 fires, half of which officials believed were intentionally set.
Meier, however, said intentional arsons are rare, accounting for about 4% of fires, and these are largely in vehicle fires where someone sets a stolen vehicle on fire to destroy any remaining evidence in a crime.
“Arson for profit is actually fairly rare, despite what insurance companies want you to believe,” Meier said.
A Wayne Co. conviction goes to trial again as defendant claims flawed evidence
Of the eight cases where a defendant convicted of arson has either been exonerated or granted a new trial, William Whateley’s case is the most recent.
Whateley was convicted of arson for a 2017 fire inside his ex-girlfriend’s Westland trailer. In March, Wayne County Circuit Judge Chandra Baker-Robinson granted him a new trial and allowed him to be released on bond.
Whateley’s attorneys said the investigation into the fire relied almost entirely on outdated and unreliable markers that were once believed to be arson indicators, such as purported pour patterns in the front half and living room of the trailer and an uncorroborated K-9 alert, to determine that the fire was intentionally set.
“I know the jury’s decision in arson cases hinges heavily on what the expert says because the average person does not know how to figure out whether somebody started a fire or not,” Baker-Robinson said when she granted Whateley a new trial. “If you have flawed testimony on whether someone started an arson or not, that’s huge.”
Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Kirsten Kelly said in March that the county plans to try its case against Whateley again and believes there is enough circumstantial evidence to gain a conviction.
How fire science has changed
The Detroit Fire Department has 16 fire investigators as well as a joint task force with the police department when it comes to investigating fires, Fire Commissioner Chuck Simms said during a budget session with the Detroit City Council earlier this year.
The city investigates around 2,000 fires per year, said Dennis Richardson, chief of the agency’s investigations division. In 2025, 19% (327) of the fires were determined to be arson. In 2024, 18% of the fires were found to be arson.
Richardson said over the years there have been “countless advances and changes in how we conduct our investigations.” He’s been in the arson division since 2003 and said he’s seen the National Fire Protection Association book with the investigations guide grow from 30 pages to being about an inch and a half thick.
“Things we once may have thought to be true may no longer be true, as they may have been debunked through time and additional scientific research,” Richardson said. “Fire investigation was not necessarily considered to be a science when I first started. It was more so an art form, interpreting something you see.”
The arson division chief said when he started at DFD, a more experienced investigator taught newer investigators their techniques and “you just pretty much took it as gospel.”
One technique that has now been debunked is a sheen on water, meaning there was some sort of ignitable and flammable liquid used to start the fire, Richardson said. Another debunked theory is that if mattress springs no longer bounce back from a mattress, it means an accelerant was used.
These arson myths were believed as facts
Syed said there were many myths believed as fact up until the late 1980s, such as that there are physical markers that can prove arson, that melted aluminum under a door sill means the fire was too hot and gas had to have been poured, or that burn patterns on the floor mean accelerants were poured.
“All this through controlled experiments was revealed to be baseless,” Syed said. “Through controlled tests, it became clear some of the stuff they were relying on was unreliable.”
Beginning in 1992, the fire investigation community issued standards for itself. There initially was a lot of pushback, Syed said, as experts were trying to bring science into something not previously seen as a scientific endeavor. The National Fire Protection Association puts out a new edition every few years, updating what methods are seen as the best practices.
The percentage of fires deemed arson has dropped precipitously, Syed said. Even common investigative methods today, such as using accelerant-detection dogs, can come with problems if the guidelines aren’t properly followed, he said.
Any debris that a dog alerts to as having an accelerant on it should be tested in the lab, and if the lab test if negative, the dog’s read should not be allowed to be used in court, Syed said. The dog can’t say why it is alerting, he said, and it could be reacting to something like plastic or foam melting rather than to the presence of an accelerant.
The Michigan State Police is hosting four different sessions of fire investigation training in 2026, according to its website. The program is nationally accredited and is recognized as a leader in fire investigation training, according to MSP.
“The purpose of the program is to provide investigators with a solid foundation of fire investigation skills,” according to MSP’s website. “A variety of methods and resources will be utilized to facilitate learning, including classroom lectures and hands-on training.”
The Detroit Fire Department also hosts one of the state’s two fire investigation trainings twice a year. The course teaches about scientific fire investigations, how to determine the origin and cause of a fire, and how to create policies for fire investigation units in smaller departments.
“Our intent for this class is a basic overview, to give you more experience because a lot of these municipalities don’t have the experience of actually having multiple fire scenes they go to and train at,” DFD’s Richardson said. “Lucky, or unlucky, for us, we can fill that gap there.”
kberg@detroitnews.com
Lansing — Michigan lawmakers worked through the night into Friday morning on a new state budget that will use an array of spending cuts and funding maneuvers to close a $1 billion tax revenue gap.
The plan will increase the state’s investment in basic per-student support for Michigan schools and will feature $125 million for special projects sought by legislators. However, 10 state departments will get less money than they had the year before, and a variety of state initiatives, such as the arts and culture program, Pure Michigan and the Office of Global Michigan, will see cuts.
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, described the new budget, which authorized somewhere around $84 billion in spending, as one “full of compromises.”
“This was a very challenging budget negotiation, mainly because of the $1 billion deficit that we had to ensure to address,” Anthony said. “But being able to do so without reducing any benefits for folks who are receiving Medicaid or food assistance is probably the proudest thing … that comes out of this process.”
The Legislature convened throughout the night Thursday into Friday morning, when the state Capitol would normally have been closed for the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
Under state law, the Republican-led House and Democratic-led Senate are supposed to approve a new budget by July 1 each year. The first of the funding bills wasn’t unveiled this week until about 3:13 a.m. Friday morning, two days after the deadline.
Lawmakers would likely have a few hours to read the bills before the final votes, which were expected later Friday.
On Thursday afternoon, Sen. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs, said Senate Republicans had no information about what was in the budget blueprint. He labeled the process playing out in the Legislature “nonsense.”
Likewise, Sen. Jim Runestad, R-White Lake Township, said lawmakers had about 30 to 40 minutes between being briefed on the budget and when they had to vote on it.
“We have no idea what’s in these bills,” Runestad said.
In February, Jen Flood, Whitmer’s budget director, said the state was facing a $1.8 billion financial gap. Health care costs had jumped, the Legislature had dedicated more tax dollars to roads, and the federal government, led by Republican President Donald Trump, had forced states to pay for a larger share of costs associated with food assistance for low-income families.
Whitmer initially proposed an $88.1 budget for next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. She sought a bevy of new taxes on smokers, gamblers and digital advertising. Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, refused to go along with the tax hikes.
The new budget will be somewhat close to the current budget in overall amount of approximately $84 million.
Hall and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, had been working for weeks to create the new funding plan. Hall announced a final deal had been reached Thursday.
The ultimate agreement involved dozens of other bills that were tied to the budget’s approval, including a long-sought measure by some Democrats that would double the cap on the state’s transformational brownfield program, which allows businesses behind large developments to keep income tax and sales withholdings resulting from their projects, from $1.6 billion to $3.2 billion.
The incentive is expected to be used to spur the redevelopment of Detroit’s riverfront Renaissance Center. The Senate approved the brownfield bill in December. The House voted 82-26 in favor of it early Friday.
The Senate also took up early Friday a House-backed proposal to ban former lawmakers from being paid to lobby for two years after leaving office. The bill passed in a vote of 29-7.
How will schools be funded?
Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, acknowledged lawmakers were shifting a larger amount of School Aid Fund money, which would normally go to K-12 schools, toward higher education and community colleges.
The number appeared to rise from about $1.3 billion in the current year to about $2 billion in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, setting a new record. Whitmer had proposed using $1.7 billion from the School Aid Fund to support the operations of universities and community colleges.
The moves effectively free up money in the General Fund, where tax dollars are currently tight, for other needs.
“It’s too much,” Camilleri said of the shifts. “But we’re dealing with a divided Legislature with different priorities, and we all needed to fill the budget gap.”
Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, blasted the approach lawmakers took.
“Nothing in this budget justifies it once again being done late,” McCann said. “There is little in it focused on supporting Michigan’s schools, even as it raids nearly $2 billion from the School Aid Fund to pay for data centers and corporate tax handouts.”
The K-12 budget went down from $21.3 billion to $19.8 billion, a 7 percent drop in federal funds on paper.
But the plan appears to allow the federal funds not included in the tally to be spent, so it wasn’t clear how much total spending there would actually be under the legislation.
Lawmakers are increasing the base per-pupil foundation allowance for schools by about 2.5% from $10,050 to $10,300. They are also investing $50 million in high-impact tutoring and instituting a long-term plan for a so-called weighted funding formula, which would tie extra support to economically disadvantaged students and students who are learning English.
House Appropriations Chairwoman Ann Bollin, R-Brighton, touted the weighted funding formula, which will be phased in over the next 15 years.
“This is a transformational school budget, where we are making record investments,” Bollin said.
For Michigan’s public universities, overall funding increased by 12% from $2.3 billion to $2.6 billion, with more money for operations and scholarships.
What were the cuts and projects?
Lawmakers’ final plan also cut $8 million in funding for the Pure Michigan tourism campaign, which received $17 million in support in the current year. The Office of Global Michigan got $500,000 less, dropping its total to about $41.4 million. And the arts and culture program got $685,200 less, dropping its total to $8 million.
Among state departments, the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy saw the largest percentage drop in funding of 31%, going from $967 million to $671 million. The decrease was largely due to the reduction of money for a federal sewage and stormwater program.
Lawmakers did provide $125 million for special projects around the state.
There was $3 million for the Schoenherr Road Bridge Reconstruction in Shelby Township, $1.4 million for the Rochester Community House expansion and renovation, $3.7 million for water main replacements in Utica and $2 million for a fire station project in Waterford Township, according to the spending plan.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
Michigan lawmakers seek prison director’s exit
30 Michigan lawmakers seek resignation of prison director Heidi Washington after 4 prison deaths; Whitmer orders probe.
Another inmate from Michigan’s female prison died on Thursday, the Michigan Department of Corrections reported, becoming the fourth female inmate to die at the facility plagued by complaints of poor conditions since May.
Dalephenia Jones, 62, of the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility died at Trinity Health Hospital about two weeks after correctional officers found that she needed medical assistance in her cell, the department said.
“As this was an unexpected death, the department will be investigating the events preceding Ms. Jones being sent to the hospital and will provide information on the result of those investigations when they are complete,” Department of Corrections spokeswoman Jenni Riehle said in a statement.
Three prior deaths at the women’s facility led 30 state lawmakers on May 19 to urge the resignation of Michigan Department of Corrections Director Heidi Washington, citing a history of problems at the state prisons under her leadership.
The prison has recently been under fire over its conditions. A state House oversight committee heard testimony in February from prisoners, advocates and former staff who testified about the conditions, including mold and a lack of medical care, similar to complaints that have risen since the two women’s deaths.
The prison’s warden, Jeremy Howard, was put “temporarily on personal leave,” the department said earlier this month.
Washington and other health care leadership have been onsite regularly at Women’s Huron Valley since the other deaths occurred in May, Riehle said.
On June 19, Huron Valley corrections officers took Jones to the facility’s health care area after finding her conscious but in need of medical assistance, the department said. The health care staff requested outside emergency medical services, the department said.
Emergency technicians determined that “Jones was having a cardiac event and she was taken into surgery after arrival at the hospital,” Riehle said.
No other specifics were given about Jones’ condition during the 14 days following surgery or the cause of the cardiac event. But Riehl said Jones “had multiple documented chronic medical conditions for which she was being offered medical treatment as part of a chronic care plan,” some of which potentially increased the risk for cardiac events.
Jones was sentenced in Wayne County to life in prison in 1994 at the Huron Valley facility.
“The department continues to take meaningful actions at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional, and other facilities, to improve the health and safety of incarcerated individuals,” Riehle said.
Riehle maintained that the department has sent “experienced clinical leadership from across the state” to the facility and that it is “hiring additional full-time medical staff, developing a new healthcare staffing plan with enhanced nursing management, improving communication, among other action items that provide additional supports.”
The concerns about the facility began after Khaira Howard, 28, died May 14 in a medical observation cell at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility. Howard’s parents are calling for reform at the Ypsilanti facility and for answers about their daughter’s death.
Rebecca Fackler, 57, another prisoner, died May 17. Both Fackler and Howard reportedly died after they were denied medical care, said two attorneys handling civil cases for loved ones of the two women.
In early June, Ashley Hoath, 36, died at Trinity Health Hospital several hours after being transferred out of the prison’s medical unit, Riehle said.
AOC Endorses El-Sayed in Michigan US Senate Race
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race. He is in a competitive three-person primary.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a potential presidential or U.S. Senate candidate in 2028 and a popular, recognized leader in progressive politics nationwide, has endorsed former Wayne County and Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed in the Aug. 4 Democratic primary for the nomination to Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat this year.
Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, announced the endorsement in an interview with the New York Times. On July 2, El-Sayed’s campaign put out a statement from her, saying, “After watching this campaign unfold for well over a year, it has become clear that Abdul El-Sayed is the strongest candidate to keep this seat in November.”
“He is building a winning coalition by putting forward an agenda that speaks directly to working people,” she said. “He is not afraid to take on the greed making life unaffordable across Michigan because he’s never taken a dime in corporate donations. When he gets to Washington, he will work to get big money out of politics and to guarantee healthcare as a human right to all Americans. I am proud to endorse Abdul El-Sayed to be Michigan’s next senator.”
It adds to an already impressive list of endorsements that includes the UAW and Detroit’s Black Slate.
El-Sayed, who was born in Michigan, trained as a medical doctor and worked in public health, is a strong supporter of government-provided healthcare, abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and an arms embargo on Israel; polling averages show him narrowly leading the Aug. 4 primary over U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak and the frontrunner to face Republican former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of White Lake for the seat in the fall.
Stevens, who is seen as a more moderate, mainstream Democrat, has also racked up endorsements, such as those from former U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm; McMorrow, making her first run for federal office, has positioned herself as a more progressive Democrat who is less tied to the party’s establishment than Stevens but more politically experienced than El-Sayed, and has gotten endorsements from U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Chris Murphy of Connecticut and others.
The Free Press typically doesn’t cover individual political endorsements unless they are newsworthy. And in this case, Ocasio-Cortez’ endorsement doesn’t come as a surprise: Like El-Sayed, she is an unapologetic advocate for progressivism in the Democratic Party and she also endorsed him in 2018 as she was running for Congress for the first time and he had mounted an ultimately unsuccessful effort to win the party’s nomination for governor, losing to Gretchen Whitmer, who became governor.
Other progressive stalwarts, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, have also already endorsed El-Sayed.
But given Ocasio-Cortez’ national profile, she could be a potentially significant factor in bolstering the support El-Sayed has seen in what some progressive backers consider the most important primary of the year and one that could be determinative as to whether left-leaning candidates break through. Her endorsement − and any appearances, if she were to campaign for El-Sayed in Michigan − could also be helpful, given that absentee voting by mail has begun.
Also, unlike past election cycles, in this current one Ocasio-Cortez has been far more circumspect about handing out her endorsement, as she has been talked about as a potential candidate for president in 2028 or a challenger to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York that year. Those endorsements have also seemingly paid off with her preferred candidates winning primaries this year in California, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
Ocasio-Cortez also has seemed more wary of endorsing in races where House colleagues have been challenged. But in endorsing El-Sayed, Ocasio-Cortez does so in a U.S. Senate race where Schumer has spoken publicly of his belief that Stevens, who was elected in the same class as Ocasio-Cortez and flipped a previously Republican district in Michigan, is better positioned to win in November.
Ocasio-Cortez’ endorsement of El-Sayed is her first in a competitive U.S. Senate race this year, as well. Taken together, it is indicative that Ocasio-Cortez expects El-Sayed to win the primary, despite Michigan’s history of electing more moderate Democrats to the U.S. Senate. (No Republican has won a U.S. Senate race in Michigan since Spencer Abraham in 1994 and he served a single term before being defeated.)
“Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has changed the trajectory of American politics and inspired a generation to believe that government really can work for working people,” El-Sayed said in response to the endorsement. “She has spent her career taking on the powerful on behalf of everyday people and she has shown all of us what courageous, smart, values-driven leadership looks like. I am deeply honored to earn her endorsement.”
The state Republican Party, for one, was unimpressed, with spokesman Greg Manz calling it “the least surprising political news of the week.”
“It takes one unhinged, radical socialist to spot another, and Abdul El-Sayed has made it clear he’d rather push the reckless Green New Scam that would kill Michigan auto manufacturing jobs and support dangerous immigration policies that would allow illegal, criminal invaders into Michigan neighborhoods than protect hardworking Michigan families,” he said.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on X @tsspangler.
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