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by JENN WOOD
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This week in rural Clarendon County, South Carolina, a judge will preside over a critical hearing which could determine whether Michael Wilson Pearson — who appears to have been unjustly imprisoned for more than fifteen years — finally gets to walk free.
S.C. circuit court judge Robert Hood will oversee the proceedings, which are scheduled to take place at 2:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday (August 28, 2025) at the Clarendon County court house in Manning S.C.
S.C. third circuit solicitor Ernest “Chip” Finney — who secured Pearson’s 60-year sentence for the 2010 robbery of Edward “Slick” Gibbons — has now filed motion to vacate that conviction. In his filing (.pdf), Finney conceded “credible evidence” has emerged showing a “reasonable probability that Mr. Pearson did not commit the crime.” He has also signaled his office will not pursue retrial if the convictions are overturned.
Meanwhile, the S.C. attorney general’s office has filed its own petition with the state supreme court, asking Pearson be granted a personal recognizance bond “in the interest of justice.” But the attorney general’s filing (.pdf) pointedly declined to concede the merits of Pearson’s innocence claim – or even the credibility of the confessions and polygraphs that purport to have cleared him.
Pearson’s lawyers — Christine Mumma and James Babb of the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence — blasted what they described as a game of political hot potato between the solicitor and the attorney general. In their response (.pdf), they noted this prosecutorial dispute should not delay justice for their client.
“Mr. Pearson certainly should not continue to be a political prisoner while an attorney general and a solicitor engage in a debate over who should be the one to admit a wrong has occurred and an innocent man deserves justice,” they noted.
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RELATED | PROSECUTORIAL MISSTEPS, POLYGRAPHS AND A SINGLE FINGERPRINT
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YEARS OF MOUNTING EVIDENCE
Pearson’s conviction has been challenged almost from the moment the jury foreman read the verdict. In 2012, his defense team argued a single fingerprint on the outside of Gibbons’ El Camino was insufficient to sustain convictions for armed robbery, burglary, kidnapping and grand larceny. Two years later, the S.C. court of appeals agreed — reversing the convictions (.pdf) and ruling the evidence rose only to “suspicion.”
That reprieve was short-lived.
In 2016, the state supreme court reinstated Pearson’s convictions (.pdf) and his sixty-year sentence, siding with prosecutors who argued the fingerprint, coupled with circumstantial ties to co-defendant Victor Weldon, was enough to convict. Pearson’s first post-conviction relief petition was denied in 2018, and in 2019 the high court refused to hear his appeal — leaving him with no legal options.
For years he remained behind bars, even as doubts about the case mounted. Those doubts reached a point of critical mass in 2022, when Weldon confessed in open court that Pearson had nothing to do with the crime. Weldon admitted his own role and named other accomplices. In 2025, Leonard Deshun Smith — a suspect questioned years earlier — failed a polygraph and also confessed to his role in the crime, clearing Pearson.
Meanwhile, filings revealed that as early as March 2023, Finney’s office had in hand polygraph results, lineup identifications and internal correspondence explicitly confirming Pearson’s innocence. Nonetheless, Pearson remained imprisoned while prosecutors fought to uphold his conviction.
Judge Hood has since described the state’s handling of the case as presenting “grave concerns” — warning the level of civil exposure was “through the roof.” Defense attorneys say those concerns stem not just from the shaky foundation of the original case, but from a decade of missed opportunities to right the wrong. They accused Finney’s office of withholding key evidence and ignoring court orders, citing “obvious omissions” in discovery that persist to this day.
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RELATED | PROSECUTOR UNDER FIRE: NEW FILINGS IN MICHAEL PEARSON CASE
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THE RHETORIC DIVIDE
The latest filings highlight a sharp contrast in how each side frames Pearson’s case — a divide that underscores just how differently they view both the evidence and the stakes.
Solicitor Finney’s filings are cautious and technical, conceding only that “credible evidence” now shows a “reasonable probability that Mr. Pearson did not commit the crime.”
Even as his office moved to vacate the conviction, Finney stopped short of using the word “innocent.” In earlier filings, his office went further — calling some defense allegations “false and misleading” and questioning whether co-defendant affidavits even qualified as “newly discovered evidence” under South Carolina law.
The attorney general’s office has been equally careful. Its petition to the supreme court, the office requested that Pearson be granted a bond “in the interest of justice” but declined to vouch for the credibility of Weldon’s confession or Leonard Smith’s polygraph-backed admission. The attorney general’s lawyers stressed that their filing “does not preclude” Finney from taking separate action – effectively passing responsibility back to the solicitor.
Pearson’s defense team, by contrast, has abandoned any such hedging in their arguments. Their filings described Pearson’s “undeniable innocence” – arguing his continued imprisonment is “a denial of fundamental fairness, shocking to the universal sense of justice.”
According to one of Pearson’s attorneys, the solicitor seems fixated on whether other suspects would be charged while ignoring the obvious issue of Pearson’s apparent innocence.
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“The solicitor seems concerned with the fact that the true perpetrators of this crime have not been charged, but whether they’re investigating the true perpetrators or charging them is irrelevant to Mr. Pearson’s innocence,” attorney Mumma noted in a statement provided to FITSNews.
The language divide reflects more than just rhetoric. It highlights the gulf between state officials trying to limit exposure and defense attorneys seeking full exoneration — a clash judge Hood must now referee in open court.
Whether Hood grants Finney’s motion for a new trial, sides with the attorney general’s request for bond or adopts the defense team’s push for outright dismissal and expungement, one outcome seems almost certain: for the first time since his 2010 arrest, Pearson will no longer be in custody. After years of legal dead ends, appeals, and ignored confessions, Pearson is on the verge of stepping out of a prison system that has held him for more than a decade and a half.
For his attorneys, that step is only the beginning. They argue nothing short of full exoneration will restore faith in South Carolina’s justice system. Yet for Pearson and his family, tomorrow marks something simpler — and perhaps more profound: the possibility of him tasting freedom for the first time in a more than a decade-and-a-half.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
As a private investigator turned journalist, Jenn Wood brings a unique skill set to FITSNews as its research director. Known for her meticulous sourcing and victim-centered approach, she helps shape the newsroom’s most complex investigative stories while producing the FITSFiles and Cheer Incorporated podcasts. Jenn lives in South Carolina with her family, where her work continues to spotlight truth, accountability, and justice.
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