Nearly a dozen witnesses have placed Temujin Kensu 450 miles away from a murder committed about 40 years ago, and a decade and a half has passed since Chief Judge Denise Page Hood ruled that he should be freed or awarded a new trial. Yet, to this day, and despite being afflicted with autoimmune and heart and lung diseases, Kensu remains behind bars in Michigan.

Worse, the man born Fredrick Freeman has been placed in complete lockdown by prison officials and corrections officers, in retaliation for the poor publicity created by the efforts from justice organizations and industry thought leaders to free him.

In her ruling on his 2010 habeas (Fredrick Thomas Freeman v. Jan Trombley), Judge Hood stated that Kensu and his attorneys had made a credible claim of innocence, and that previously:

• He’d been denied his constitutional right to testify.

• He’d suffered from ineffective counsel from David Dean, who failed to call Kensu’s primary alibi witness and would later be disbarred for alcohol and cocaine misuse during Kensu’s trial.

• The prosecutor, Robert Cleland, who retired as a federal judge in 2025, was guilty of misconduct in using the perjured testimony of an incarcerated informant, who would later recant — in full.

While Cleland suggested at trial that Kensu could have committed the murder and then flown by private plane to Escanaba, where he was seen by multiple witnesses, it is more likely a scapegoat was needed — and quickly; the person who was killed was Scott Macklem, the son of a prominent local politician.

No murder weapon was ever produced, and no gunshot residue was found on Kensu’s clothing. An ammunition box found at the murder scene contained a fingerprint that did not belong to Kensu.

Nevertheless, Judge Hood’s ruling was appealed by the State of Michigan, and the Sixth Circuit Court overruled her on purely procedural grounds: for a late filing. Additional legal appeals to multiple Michigan governors, state attorneys general, Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) officials and parole board members have proven unsuccessful. 

In 2016, as reported by CBS News, Kensu successfully sued the Michigan Department of Corrections for neglect in handling his medical care. However, criminal legal efforts continued to fail.

In 2020, the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) established by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel rejected Kensu’s claim of innocence; the decision was condemned, including by congresspeople Andy Levin and Rashida Tlaib, who wrote that their “point of view” was “based on the fact that Kensu could not have committed and did not in fact commit the crime for which the state is taking away the entire rest of his life.” Then, in 2022, an emergency clemency petition from the Michigan Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School was denied by Michigan Governor Whitmer. 

We interviewed Kensu in 2020, and again in February 2026; in the last five-plus years, Kensu’s case has continued to draw increasing attention, but he remains imprisoned.

How Temujin Kensu Got Framed

It has been agreed by numerous experts who have looked at the Kensu case that there’s something untoward.

First, Kensu says, “I was framed to cover up and misdirect from the real reason for Scott Macklem’s death — that he was killed as part of his drug dealing at the college.”

Second, Scott’s father Gary was a prominent figure: the mayor of a small-town named Croswell and a wealthy business and land owner.

Third, Gary was well aware of Scott’s drug issues and used his influence with Cleland and the police “to keep Scott out of trouble.”

And fourth, I was an “easy patsy,” Kensu says. “I had no roots, no family, very few real friends, and no money or resources to defend myself.”

Even Law Enforcement Today reported that “[p]rosecutorial misconduct, a hypnotized witness, a jailhouse informant who later recanted, and a defense attorney too deep in addiction to properly represent his client all played roles in sending an innocent man to prison for life.”

In a 2024 article on the case, authors Herbert Welser and Jim McNeil confirm a litany of authority figures in Michigan question the case. Former FBI special agent Harold Copus, Michigan State Police polygraph expert Chester Romatowski, former Michigan Supreme Court chief justices Thomas Brennan and Bridgette McCormack and 30-year federal prosecutor Ross Parker all believe Kensu’s case “represents a grave miscarriage of justice.”

As Kensu told us: “The federal court system was never going to admit that a federal judge with a lifetime appointment not only framed an innocent young man for murder and sent him away to die but also violated almost every known legal standard to do so — including having me tortured to break me.”

According to Kensu, this has meant confinement in “a dark, cold cell, with no visits, no phone calls, no showers and no books, forced to drink from the toilet, starving and isolated.”

Disappeared, for Four Decades

Now nearing 63, Temujin Kensu entered the prison system at 23. 

“I came to the Michigan Department of Corrections during one of its most brutal periods, which included the 1987 murders of two corrections officers, one of which I was present for: the brutal stabbing of guard Jack Budd, who died in front of me,” Kensu says. “Michigan State Prison, or Jackson, was a war zone. I watched men robbed, beaten, raped and even murdered while guards did nothing or turned their backs and walked away.”

Kensu refused to succumb to the violence, instead focusing on researching and fighting to appeal his and other’s cases and improve prison conditions. This, he says, only put him in further danger.

Kensu was in “excellent health” when he was first incarcerated, but now says he suffers from multiple progressive diseases and disabilities. “I had two heart attacks at only 27 years old from untreated heart disease and almost died again in 2014, after 25 years of their refusal to provide any treatment or exam for bowel disease.” 

According to Kensu, it was “only by going to the hole and lying unable to move for two days on camera” that he was able to persuade prison officials to provide him transport to a hospital. There, he says, he received a CT scan and, after “pleading my case to civilians” from his hospital bed, was rushed to another hospital for emergency surgery.

When we asked him to describe the worst part of being behind bars, here’s what he told us:

All the things that matter in life are stripped away. The feel of my kitten’s fur as she snuggled my face and purred in the morning. A fresh cup of coffee as the day begins. Driving under the stars at night. Riding my bike along trails, my puppies yipping around my heels, and just feeling alive. The touch of a lover’s embrace. Real food. Enjoying a glass of wine or a cold beer. A slice of pizza. Walking through a mall. Playing guitar and singing along with an album you just bought. Holding my children and squeezing them while they giggle. Soft kisses. Travel. Faith. Friends and family passing away, and you are powerless to help, and cannot even be there for them just to say goodbye… You are sure you are going to die in this place, like so many before you. Despondency, nightmares, frustration, disgust, anger, bitterness, hopelessness, and even thoughts of suicide, no matter how strong you are. 

At times, “you just want to give up,” Kensu told us. “But you can’t because that is exactly what they want you to do, what they hope you will do, what they pray you will do.” Instead, “you turn all the negative to the positive, you steel your resolve, if you can, and you fight back. You use all the horror to inspire you. And then, amazing, incredible people come forward, and you find hope again.”

COVID, Behind Bars

For Kensu, an influx of COVID-era supporters did provide hope, even as prison conditions — and his health — worsened; other incarcerated people found themselves more isolated, with the loss of in-person visits and price gouging for prison phone calls.

As documented by UCLA’s COVID Behind Bars Data Project, prisons were a hotbed for the pandemic — while incarcerated people worked for pennies, producing hand sanitizer and digging mass graves.

In Michigan, a Democratic governor wasn’t enough to prevent what Kensu describes as “disgusting” treatment of the people inside.

“Not only did the prison not provide cleaning supplies or protective measures, they canceled cell cleaning — and if you reported you were sick, with no testing, you were just stripped of all your personal possessions and thrown in the hole,” Kensu told us. 

“So you had a choice: admit you were sick, get punished and tortured, and die alone in a cell with nothing; or, keep your books, food and appliances, and stay sick and possibly die, at least living a little better.”

As Kensu observed, most hid their illness. Either way, he says, incarcerated people were denied all prison programming, as well as access to courts, legal aids and the law library, mental health care, dental care, and almost all health care. 

“This is cruel,” he says, “but typical of our system.” He and his peers “begged the prison director and the governor to act — but nothing.”

Many in Kensu’s cell block would die, including his best friend and workout partner.

And even during COVID, Kensu insisted on speaking out about more than his own “false” imprisonment. 

Reforming Prisons and Breaking Stereotypes

Prisons are an exact slice of Americana. We have doctors and serial rapists, lawyers and pedophiles, ex-cops and satanic butchers. We have the educated and the illiterate, drug addicts and teetotalers, monsters and demons and amazing, fantastic and caring people in here.

“We are human beings,” Kensu declared during our first conversation. “We feel like you, we fear like you, and we respond like you — to pain, to torment and to abuse, but also to kindness, understanding, caring and compassion.” 

In spite of decades of evidence that incarceration doesn’t work to reduce recidivism, Kensu, like so many others, insists that prison conditions do dictate results; in other words, with the right design, outlook and programming, prisons can — and should — be centers of rehabilitation. 

“As we work toward abolition, we cannot ignore the state of prisons or the well-being of prisoners today. And we can only become better when given the opportunities, guidance and support to do so,” he said. “Positive programming — the carrot and the stick, and privileges as reward for good conduct — have been proven to work.”

So, what would he recommend?

First, we as a society need to “let go of thoughts of vengeance, retribution, retaliation, and oppression,” Kensu says, echoing the conclusion of Angela Davis’s seminal abolitionist work “Are Prisons Obsolete?” 

Then, we need to institute reforms, like the ones proposed recently by the Brookings Institute. For Kensu, this means “good jobs with good pay, computers with internet, furloughs, chances for increasing the possibility of parole with model behavior, mentorships, faith-based initiatives, educational grants and programs, college, and trade skills.”

According to Kensu, “all the problems of this failed system are fixable, and most of us who have been locked up know what needs to be done.” 

This sentiment has been echoed time and time again, including directly to us by formerly incarcerated activists like JustLeadershipUSA founder Glenn Martin and justice nonprofit executive Louis L. Reed.

Another Five Years

For Kensu, little has changed in the last five years. In fact, he says, “it’s only gotten worse.” While costs have steadily risen behind bars, “prisoner pay is abysmal,” at only $20 per month. Meanwhile, “they’ve eliminated just about every positive program and opportunity” — and, “years after COVID,” continue to apply “the draconian visiting schedule set during the pandemic.” 

When we interviewed Kensu in 2020, we were able to converse for more than an hour in a single sitting; in 2026, each call is restricted to 15 minutes.

Without sports, “hobbycraft” and other programs, and with limited access to the outside world, “inmates are basically reduced to getting high as their primary form of ‘entertainment,’” Kensu told us. “As if on purpose, drugs have become incredibly cheap.” For as little as a dollar, Kensu says, one can now secure enough K2 or Suboxone “to have you retching and vomiting on the floor in a matter of moments.”

According to Kensu, Michigan Governor Whitmer “knows all about this and has refused every entreaty to do anything about it,” reminiscent of her lack of response to Kensu’s case.

It’s been nearly four years since Nessel’s Conviction Integrity Unit “betrayed its mission” (Proving Innocence) in Kensu’s case, while Whitmer has neglected to even rule on Kensu’s long-pending clemency request. 

As of this writing, Kensu says, “we hold little to no hope that she might do the right thing.”

About the author: Phil Mandelbaum is an award-winning journalist, a co-creator of the content services division of The Associated Press, a nonprofit and political strategist, and an organizer and artist, also known as awkword.

Cover image contributed by Phil Mandelbaum.

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