"A Fool for a Client"

Suspect takes his own case
BY NATE TRELA FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
February 2, 2005
When Kenyon Clinton's trial on kidnapping, armed robbery and firearm charges in Macomb County Circuit Court is over, he'll head to the Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia.
Whether the Detroit man ever gets to leave hangs in the balance, and he doesn't trust anyone else to argue for his freedom.
Clinton, 24, is serving as his own attorney in a trial that began Tuesday before Judge Donald Miller, defending himself against charges that carry a penalty of up to life in prison if he is convicted.
"I'm going to fight hard, because it's my life," he told the jury in his opening statement.
Clinton is one of three men charged in a May 2002 robbery and kidnapping outside a gas station near 8 Mile and Schoenherr in Warren. Macomb County Assistant Prosecutor Steve Kaplan said the men forced a 25-year-old Warren man into their car at gunpoint.
They drove him to Detroit, put a gun to his head, threatened to kill him and beat him before driving off with his cash and cell phone, Kaplan said.
Clinton was convicted in July of a role in a similar attempted robbery later that day near a Target store on Dequindre, north of 12 Mile, and was sentenced to more than 23 years in prison.
Caprell Hill, 23, and Charles Crutcher, 21, both of Detroit, pleaded guilty last year to participating in both incidents.
Kaplan told the jury that Clinton was the gunman in both cases, and that he planned to call the victims as witnesses. Neither Hill nor Crutcher is expected to testify.
Clinton got off to a rocky start in front of the jury, asking to borrow the "diaphragm" Kaplan used in his opening statement. Kaplan agreed, allowing Clinton to use a chart that outlined the charges.
Clinton also argued that while there is evidence he has been in the 1980s Chevrolet Caprice linked to both cases, he wasn't there during the gas station incident.
"There are other things that happened in that car that don't involve me, period," he said. The trial continues today.
Mark Haddad withdrew as Clinton's attorney in October, but was ordered by the judge to sit with him and be prepared to take over if Clinton changes his mind about defending himself. Haddad has served in an advisory role for people defending themselves before and said it can be frustrating.
"You sit there, you see everything in front of your face and you are helpless to do anything about it. I can give him advice and guidance. Sometimes, he listens," Haddad said. "Every criminal defendant thinks his case is a slam dunk, that he can walk up and get acquitted. That's not reality." .