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  • Home
  • About Us
    • Mission & History
    • Board & Staff
    • Contact OTSE
  • Take Action
    • Join OTSE
    • Donate
    • Upcoming Events
    • Host an Event
    • Open Letter from Ohio’s Faith Leaders
    • Mental Illness Reforms
  • Resources
    • Take Action Against Executions
    • Issues
    • Task Force Recommendations
    • Educational Handouts & Articles
    • Clemency Campaigns
    • News
    • Press Releases
    • Publications

Innocence & Wrongful Convictions

When execution is the outcome, the system must be perfect 100% of the time. Since 1976,  nine men have been exonerated from death row. On average, each man spent over 21 years imprisoned. Combined, they served 190 years incarcerated for crimes they did not commit.

To be considered an exoneree, he or she must fulfill three requirements set by the Death Penalty Information Center, the nation’s leading source for death penalty information. Along with being convicted and sentenced to death, defendants also must fit the following criterion:

  1. Been acquitted of all chargers related to the crime that placed them on death row, or,
  2. Had all charges related to the crime dismissed by the prosecution, or
  3. Been granted a complete pardon based on evidence of innocence.

“The National Registry of Exonerations reports that 26 Ohioans were found guilty of murders they did not commit between 1975 and 2015. Half of these wrongfully convicted individuals – 13 of 26 – faced the death penalty.”

– Jim Petro

Ohio exonerees since 1976

Gary Beeman was sentenced to death in 1976. His conviction was based on perjured testimony from a prison escapee who Beeman’s lawyers were prevented from cross-examining. During Beeman’s retrial, five witnesses testified that the testimony during the initial trial and that the star witness from 1976 was the killer, not Beeman. Beeman was acquitted in 1979.

Dale Johnston was sentenced to death in 1984 for the murders of his stepdaughter and her boyfriend. After undergoing hypnosis, a sole eyewitness identified Johnston as the killer. The only other primary witness provided boot print evidence that was later discredited. The authorities knew  four other eyewitnesses with a completely different story of the crime, but they never disclosed them to the defense. Johnston was released in 1990.

Timothy Howard and Gary Lamar James were convicted of a murder during a bank robbery in 1976. They were released after new, previously undisclosed evidence was discovered. The evidence wasn’t presented at their trial and included conflicting witness statements and fingerprints. Their charges were dismissed in 2003.

Derrick Jamison was sentenced to death in 1985 for the murder of a Cincinnati bartender. Prosecutors withheld critical evidence that would have pointed to Jamison’s innocence, including eyewitness descriptions and statements contrary to the story told by Jamison’s co-defendant. Jamison’s charges were dismissed in 2005, twenty years after he was sent to death row.

Joe D’Ambrosio was sentenced to death in 1989 for murder of Anthony Klann. The federal district court overturned his conviction because the state had withheld evidence from the defense that proved his innocence. The court then barred his re-conviction trial due to further prosecutorial misconduct. D’Ambrosio’s charges were dismissed in 2012, twenty-three years after he was sentenced to death row.

Ricky, Wiley, and Kwame were sentenced to death for the 1975 murder of a money-order salesmen in Cleveland. The state’s case relied on testimony from a 12-year old who identified the three men as the perpetrators of the crime. In 2014, the witness recanted his testimony and admitted to being pressured by law enforcement to make the false identification. The men spent a combined total of nearly 90 years in prison and would have been executed in the 1970s had the U.S. Supreme Court not ruled the death penalty unconstitutional.

Other Wrongful Convictions & Exonerations

In 2016, three men were exonerated from Ohio prisons, though they were not residing on death row. Laurese Glover, Eugene Johnson, and Derrick Wheatt were wrongfully convicted for the 1995 murder of Clifton Hudson in Cleveland. The three men were just boys–16, 17, and 17 respectively– when they were accused and wrongfully convicted of the murder.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 59 Ohioans have been exonerated for crimes they did not commit. 32 of the exonerees (54%) were exonerated after being convicted of murder.

56% of the wrongful convictions were for aggravated murder and death penalty eligible. Sixteen exonerees had capital indictments filed against them and faced the death penalty for crimes they did not commit.

Ohio legislators have opportunities to put protections in place that would address the problem of wrongful conviction. Over a dozen recommendations were made to the legislature by a Supreme Court Task Force in 2014. To date, none of those protections have been acted upon by state lawmakers. The recommendations included require accreditation of crime labs, electronic recordings of in-custody interrogations, enacting legislation stating the death penalty can only be imposed with DNA, video, video-taped confession, or other compelling evidence is present. The full list of recommendations can be found here.

These reforms, if adopted, would address the leading factors contributing to wrongful conviction including mistaken witness identification, perjury or false accusation, official misconduct, false confessions, misleading evidence, and inadequate legal defense.

Wrongfully convicted men and women are a stark reminder the system all too often makes mistakes. And when an innocent person is executed, the mistake becomes irreversible.

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RECOMMENDATION 52

Adoption of a rule directing that the trial judge is the appropriate authority for the appointment of experts for indigent defendants. The rule should further provide that the decision pertaining to the appointment of experts shall be made, on the record, at one of the prescribed Pre-Trial Conferences.

If defense counsel requests, the demand for appointment of the expert shall be made in-camera ex parte, and the order concerning the appointment shall be under seal.

Upon establishing counsels’ respective compliance with discovery obligations, the question of the appointment of experts (including determination of projected expert fees based upon analysis of expert’s time to be applied to the case as well as consideration of incremental payment of expert fees as case progresses) would be decided by the court, which decision would be subject to immediate appeal, under seal, to the appropriate Court of Appeals. The trial court judge shall make written findings as to the basis for any denial. Although concerns have been raised as to the ability of the Appellate Court to provide the anticipated, necessary expedited hearing within a reasonable time-frame, the Joint Task Force suggests that this issue be elevated to the status of a final appealable order and that the necessary expedited appellate process be spelled out in the statute.

RECOMMENDATION 54

Should the present process of appointment of indigent counsel by the judiciary continue, the main objective should always be to assure the best educationally experienced and qualified candidate, who is available (within the county or outside the county), and who is otherwise willing to take on the responsibilities associated with the case for an appropriate fee and accompanying expenses, is appointed. A uniform fee schedule for such services across the State of Ohio must be a necessary consideration to assure the equal protection and due process for the accused in a capital case.

RECOMMENDATION 55

Adoption of reporting standards to provide complete transparency of record, including requirements to ensure better record keeping by the trial judge and the provision of additional, detailed resource information necessary to assure strict compliance with due process, which information shall be submitted to the Supreme Court upon completion of the case. Such resource information may include unique Constitutional issues, unique evidentiary issues, significant motions, plea rationale, pre-sentence investigation, and any additional information required by the Rule 20 Committee or the Supreme Court of Ohio. Additional types of resource information could be developed as part of the mandated educational process conducted by the Ohio Judicial College.

RECOMMENDATION 56

The Joint Task Force believes that some of the recommendations above could be accomplished by the adoption of a separate Criminal Rule for Capital Cases. The Joint Task Force recommends that such a rule be adopted and provide for the mandatory training of attorneys and judges (Recommendation 49), the selection and appointment of indigent counsel in capital cases (Recommendation 51), and the enforcement of the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases and the Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams (Recommendations 11 and 12).