Death-Row Exonerees in Ohio, Oklahoma Receive Million Dollar Payments for Their Wrongful Convictions

Two men exon­er­at­ed from death row, one in Ohio and one in Oklahoma, have received mil­lion ‑dol­lar pay­outs for their wrong­ful con­vic­tions and death sen­tences. Both were tried and con­vict­ed in coun­ties with long his­to­ries of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and high rates of wrong­ful cap­i­tal con­vic­tions. The com­pen­sa­tion comes more than a decade after each was released from incarceration. 

In ear­ly September 2021, for­mer death-row pris­on­er Robert Miller reached a $2 mil­lion set­tle­ment with Oklahoma City for his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for the rape and mur­der of two elder­ly women in Oklahoma County in 1988. He is one of five death-row exon­er­a­tions in the coun­ty, the fourth most in the nation since the death penal­ty was reestab­lished in the U.S. in the 1970s. One week ear­li­er, on August 30, 2021, the Ohio Controlling Board vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to award Cleveland death-row exoneree Joe D’Ambrosio (pic­tured) $1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion from the state’s wrong­ful impris­on­ment fund for his wrong­ful con­vic­tions for bur­glary, kid­nap­ing, felony mur­der, and aggra­vat­ed mur­der of teenag­er Tony Klann in 1989. He is one of six death-row exon­er­a­tions in Cuyahoga County, sec­ond only to Cook County (Chicago), Illinois. 

Miller was tried dur­ing the pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al admin­is­tra­tion of ​“Cowboy Bob” Macy, in which 54 peo­ple were sent to death row. His con­vic­tion was based in part upon the false tes­ti­mo­ny of foren­sic ana­lyst Joyce Gilchrist, who claimed semen dis­cov­ered at the scene were con­sis­tent with Miller’s blood-type, that human hair had ​“Negroid char­ac­ter­is­tics,” and that ani­mal hairs were con­sis­tent with those of a dog Miller had been car­ing for. Later DNA test­ing of the semen exclud­ed Miller as its source and eval­u­a­tion of the hair evi­dence by a pri­vate lab deter­mined her con­clu­sions regard­ing the human hair were ““com­plete­ly unjus­ti­fied” and that her ani­mal-hair analy­sis was invalid. Miller, who is Black, spent 10 years in prison before pros­e­cu­tors dis­missed charges against him ​“with­out prej­u­dice,” mean­ing that he could still be retried. The charges were not dropped ​“with prej­u­dice” for anoth­er 10 years.

No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked D’Ambrosio to Klann’s mur­der. The teen’s corpse was found in Doan Creek in Cleveland’s Rockefeller Park with mul­ti­ple stab wounds to the chest and with his throat slit. D’Ambrosio’s con­vic­tion rest­ed on the false tes­ti­mo­ny of Edward Espinoza, who reached a deal with pros­e­cu­tors to plead guilty to manslaugh­ter and oth­er less­er charges in exchange for tes­ti­fy­ing against D’Ambrosio and a sec­ond defen­dant, Thomas Keenan, who also was sen­tenced to death. D’Ambrosio lat­er learned that Cuyahoga County pros­e­cu­tors had con­cealed mul­ti­ple pieces of excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence from the defense at tri­al, includ­ing that Espinoza’s tes­ti­mo­ny was false and that Klann had not even been mur­dered at the creek, as Espinoza had claimed. D’Ambrosio’s con­vic­tions were over­turned in 2006 and, after even more pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, the fed­er­al courts barred his retri­al in 2010. Cuyahoga County pros­e­cu­tors opposed D’Ambrosio’s efforts to obtain a judi­cial dec­la­ra­tion of inno­cence and con­tin­ued to oppose com­pen­sa­tion for him after the leg­is­la­ture amend­ed the law to pro­vide pay­ment in cas­es of prosecutorial misconduct.

Oklahoma County Misconduct

Bob Macy’s tenure as Oklahoma County District Attorney was char­ac­ter­ized by per­va­sive mis­con­duct. A June 2016 report by Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project list­ed Macy among ​“America’s Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors” and not­ed that ​“mis­con­duct [had been] found in approx­i­mate­ly one-third of Macy’s death penal­ty cas­es.” Gilchrist’s wide­spread mis­con­duct led to an FBI inves­ti­ga­tion and her fir­ing in 2001, but only after her tes­ti­mo­ny had con­tributed to 23 cap­i­tal con­vic­tions and death sen­tences. Eleven of the men she tes­ti­fied against were exe­cut­ed before her mis­con­duct was discovered.

All five of the Oklahoma County death-row exonerees were wrong­ful­ly pros­e­cut­ed by Macy or dur­ing his admin­is­tra­tion. In addi­tion, two oth­er Oklahoma County death-row pris­on­ers pros­e­cut­ed dur­ing Macy’s admin­is­tra­tion, Richard Glossip and Julius Jones, are wide­ly regard­ed to be innocent.

After DNA exclud­ed Miller and his con­vic­tion was over­turned in 1997, Macy con­tin­ued to insist with­out evi­dence that Miller had been involved in the mur­ders and ini­tial­ly planned to retry him. Ultimately, in 1998, Macy dis­missed the charges against Miller ​“with­out prej­u­dice.” Although Miller was freed from prison at that time, Oklahoma County pros­e­cu­tors offered to drop the death penal­ty against the actu­al assailant if he would agree to tes­ti­fy that Miller has been involved in the murders. 

Miller ini­tial­ly sought $90 mil­lion in dam­ages from Oklahoma City, but set­tled for $2 mil­lion. ​“No amount of com­pen­sa­tion could make up for years on death row even if he didn’t have the stig­ma of alleged­ly being a rapist of old ladies,” Robert Miller’s attor­ney, Mark Barrett, told Oklahoma’s News 4. 

Cuyahoga County Misconduct

Six men wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for mur­der in Cuyahoga County have been exon­er­at­ed, with every case involv­ing some form of offi­cial mis­con­duct. Kwame Ajamu, Wiley Bridgeman, and Ricky Jackson were wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1975 and not exon­er­at­ed until 2014. County pros­e­cu­tors’ his­to­ry of mis­con­duct in cap­i­tal cas­es has also long includ­ed stonewalling efforts to release death-row pris­on­ers who were wrongfully convicted. 

In anoth­er case of pos­si­ble inno­cence, Cuyahoga County pros­e­cu­tors have opposed DNA test­ing that could poten­tial­ly exon­er­ate Melvin Bonnell for the 1987 mur­der of Robert Bunner and have been caught lying to the court about hav­ing with­held evi­dence in the case. In April 2020, Bonnell’s lawyers dis­cov­ered three envelopes con­tain­ing bul­lets and shell cas­ings in the prosecutor’s files that pros­e­cu­tors had false­ly claimed for 30 years had been lost or destroyed. Even after Bonnell’s lawyers had found the evi­dence, pros­e­cu­tors told the court that ​“the items in ques­tion were not pre­served for test­ing. … The State nev­er hid it from Bonnell.” 

In D’Ambrosio’s case, he and Keenan over­turned their con­vic­tions because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct that, in addi­tion to show­ing that Espinoza had com­mit­ted per­jury, also includ­ed con­ceal­ing evi­dence point­ing to anoth­er sus­pect. That evi­dence sug­gest­ed that Klann may have been mur­dered by a man who had pre­vi­ous­ly raped D’Ambrosio’s room­mate and who then deflect­ed atten­tion from him­self by false­ly impli­cat­ing D’Ambrosio in Klann’s mur­der. County pros­e­cu­tors con­tin­ued to with­hold still more excul­pa­to­ry infor­ma­tion from the defense as D’Ambrosio’s retri­al date approached in 2009. A week before the tri­al, they for the first time dis­closed the exis­tence of blood sam­ples and soil sam­ples, then, after the retri­al was delayed, wait­ed for sev­er­al more months before reveal­ing that Espinoza had died and so could not be deposed or cross exam­ined about his false testimony.

In 2010, the fed­er­al court barred the coun­ty prosecutor’s office from retry­ing D’Ambrosio and, after pros­e­cu­tors exhaust­ed their appeals of that order, he was final­ly exon­er­at­ed in 2012. Cuyahoga pros­e­cu­tors then fought for eight more years to deny D’Ambrosio com­pen­sa­tion for his wrong­ful con­vic­tion. When the Ohio board announced its deci­sion, a spokesper­son for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley’s office pub­licly crit­i­cized it as ​“appalling.” It is ​“beyond dis­pute,” the office said, that D’Ambrosio was involved in Klann’s kidnapping.

Keenan also over­turned his 1989 con­vic­tion because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct but was retried and resen­tenced to death in 1994. A fed­er­al court over­turned that con­vic­tion as well, cit­ing ​“egre­gious” pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. A state tri­al court then dis­missed all charges against Keenan in 2012 and barred pros­e­cu­tors from retry­ing him. However, coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors suc­cess­ful­ly appealed that order and, to avoid fac­ing a third cap­i­tal tri­al, Keenan pled guilty to less­er charges in 2016. He was sen­tenced to time served.

D’Ambrosio’s attor­neys told Cleveland​.com that the com­pen­sa­tion will afford their client a finan­cial safe­ty net for the remain­der of his life and ​“some form of justice.”