Usually, it's the guilty party that complains about an unfair trial. However, in the case of Daniel Green — one of the men who has long been in prison for the murder of Michael Jordan's father — it's the judge who sent him there who's calling foul.
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00:00Usually, it's the guilty party that complains about an unfair trial. However, in the case
00:05of Daniel Green, one of the men who has long been in prison for the murder of Michael Jordan's
00:09father, it's the judge who sent him there who's calling foul.
00:13Gregory Weeks, the North Carolina judge who handed down a guilty verdict to both Green
00:17and his accomplice Larry Demery in 1996, recently contacted the state parole commission and
00:22admitted that he might have made a huge mistake all those years ago. Turns out, the forensic
00:27blood analysis that played a key part in the trial wasn't as conclusive as he made
00:31it out to be during the trial.
00:33According to ABC News, Weeks confessed to the commission that he has been harboring
00:36doubt about his decision ever since he let the gavel fall. But how exactly was the blood
00:41analysis inconclusive? It all goes back to the accepted narrative of the murder, which
00:45was largely based on Demery's testimony. Notably, he agreed to plead guilty to first-degree
00:50murder and testify against Green in an effort to dodge the harshest possible penalty.
00:55By entering that plea agreement, he has a better shot of avoiding the death penalty."
00:59James Jordan, Michael Jordan's father, was sleeping in his car in the parking lot of
01:03Equality Inn back in 1993. Reportedly, he had simply been too tired to keep driving
01:08after a long day, much of it spent golfing with his son, and decided to rest. That night,
01:13Green and Demery came upon Jordan and decided to rob him instead of the hotel, which had
01:17allegedly been their original plan.
01:20According to Demery's testimony, Daniel shot Jordan dead after they decided to merely tie
01:24him up. It was only after they started going through his possessions that they realized
01:28who their victim actually was. During his testimony, Demery said that Green told him,
01:32"...I believe we've killed Michael Jordan's daddy."
01:34Afterwards, they stole the vehicle and dumped Jordan's body in a swamp near Bennettsville,
01:39South Carolina. By the time the body was discovered by authorities, it was severely decomposed.
01:44Only through dental records were they able to make a positive identification.
01:48That's the accepted narrative of the murder. Green's version of the events, however, are
01:52quite different. According to Green, Demery arrived at his house in the dead of night
01:56and told him that he had shot a man and needed help disposing of the body, which Green helped
02:01him do. Besides that, he had nothing to do with Jordan's murder.
02:04This is where the forensic blood analysis comes into play. The blood analyst who examined
02:08the evidence was not able to confirm that stains found inside of Jordan's stolen car
02:13were actually his blood. Beyond that, the analyst also wasn't able to find a hole in
02:17Jordan's clothing that corresponded with the shot allegedly fired by Green.
02:21Further complicating matters was the fact that Jordan's body was cremated soon after
02:25it was unearthed, something that many of Green's advocates have found to be suspicious. Still,
02:30Daniel's attorney, Christine Mumma, has admitted that this was standard procedure.
02:34"...It was practice for a body that highly decomposed to be cremated after it was not
02:41identified."
02:42According to Weeks, the analyst did not mention the true nature of her findings during the
02:46trial, which he said would have altered his final decision of sentencing both men to life
02:50in prison.
02:51Demery was originally approved for parole in August of 2020, but the scheduled release
02:56was pushed back and eventually terminated. As of this video, he's still awaiting another
03:01hearing.
03:02Green's hope for release, on the other hand, relies solely on the petition put forth by
03:05Gregory Weeks. So far, there's no telling how the state parole board will respond. Green
03:10has long proclaimed his innocence, but has also accepted responsibility for his actions.
03:14He wrote in a letter to the state parole commission,
03:17"...Every day I live with the remorse and the pain and the suffering caused by my youthful
03:21decisions. I regret the harm my actions inflicted on the Jordan family."
03:25As for how he feels about Weeks' efforts to potentially get him out of prison, he said
03:29in a phone call with ABC News,
03:31"...It speaks volumes about this case, and I'm overwhelmingly grateful."