Ohio Appeals Court Grants Tyrone Noling Access to Police and Prosecutor Files Alleged to Contain Long-Hidden Exculpatory Evidence

An Ohio appeals court has ordered that death-row pris­on­er Tyrone Noling (pic­tured) be grant­ed access to pros­e­cu­tors’ and law enforce­ment files that may con­tain excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence that has been hid­den for decades from the defense.

On March 14, 2022, the Ohio Court of Appeals reversed a July 2021 rul­ing by the Portage County Court of Common Pleas that had denied Noling’s motion to review the file of the Portage County Prosecutor in his case and the inves­tiga­tive files of the Portage County Sheriff relat­ing to the April 1990 mur­ders of Bearnhardt and Nora Hartig. Noling, who has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence, was tried and sen­tenced to death for the mur­ders in 1996. He has alleged, based upon evi­dence obtained in a pub­lic records request relat­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of his co-defen­dants, that police and pros­e­cu­tors with­held evi­dence point­ing to two oth­er men as alter­nate sus­pects in the killing. 

Ohio Innocence Project lawyer Brian Howe, who is rep­re­sent­ing Noling, called the court of appeals deci­sion ​“an impor­tant step for­ward in [Noling’s] ongo­ing fight for a fair tri­al and to clear his name.” ​“Tyrone Noling is an inno­cent man on death row,” Howe said. ​“There is no excuse for try­ing to hide evi­dence in a cap­i­tal mur­der case, at any stage of the proceeding.”

No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Noling to the crime and in 1992 he passed a poly­graph test in which he denied involve­ment in the mur­ders. In 1995, after a new inves­ti­ga­tor was assigned to the case, Noling’s alleged accom­plices impli­cat­ed him in the case. All three of the prosecution’s key wit­ness­es have since recant­ed their tes­ti­mo­ny, say­ing they gave false state­ments after hav­ing been threat­ened by the pros­e­cu­tion. DNA analy­sis of a cig­a­rette butt found at the scene exclud­ed Noling and his alleged accomplices.

In 2009, 13 years after Noling’s tri­al, his lawyers obtained hand­writ­ten police notes from the inves­ti­ga­tions of his code­fen­dants in 1990 in which a wit­ness, Nathan Chesley, said that his fos­ter broth­er, Dan Wilson, had con­fessed to hav­ing com­mit­ted the mur­ders. Wilson, who lived in the neigh­bor­hood of the Hartig mur­ders, was con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der in an unre­lat­ed case in 1991. He was exe­cut­ed in June 2009. Wilson’s blood type matched the cig­a­rette butt at the crime scene, and, Noling’s lawyers argued, DNA evi­dence from the butt did not exclude him. 

The police files also includ­ed state­ments by Marlene VanSteenberg that poten­tial­ly impli­cat­ed her broth­er-in-law, Raymond VanSteenberg, in the mur­ders. Raymond, Marlene VanSteenberg said, had dis­card­ed his .25 cal­iber pis­tol — the same cal­iber as the gun used to kill the Hartigs — when pros­e­cu­tors began inves­ti­gat­ing him and then turned in a dif­fer­ent gun he had bor­rowed from his broth­er when police asked to test his weapon. The state­ment from Marlene said Raymond then asked her to lie about how long he had had that gun.

Portage County pros­e­cu­tors have aggres­sive­ly opposed grant­i­ng Noling access to the evi­dence, inter­pos­ing a vari­ety of pro­ce­dur­al defens­es, even after then-Governor Ted Strickland and then-Attorney General Richard Cordray urged them in 2010 to allow DNA test­ing that could poten­tial­ly prove his innocence. 

The rul­ing was the sec­ond time the Court of Appeals had reversed a Portage County court’s denial of access to the evi­dence. In March 2014, the appeals court ordered the tri­al court to con­duct addi­tion­al pro­ceed­ings to deter­mine whether the poten­tial­ly excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence point­ing to alter­nate sus­pects had been made avail­able in the prosecution’s dis­cov­ery at the time of Noling’s tri­al. The Court wrote that ​“fur­ther pro­ceed­ings are nec­es­sary to deter­mine whether the evi­dence at issue was part of the [prosecutor’s] file or oth­er­wise avail­able through the Sheriff’s mate­r­i­al at the time of trial.” 

The March 2022 rul­ing said that the tri­al court’s most recent refusal to grant Noling access to the Portage County Attorney’s and Portage County Sheriff’s files ​“effec­tive­ly ignored” the March 2014. Eleventh District Court of Appeals Judge Cynthia Rice wrote, “[Noling] argues that the tri­al court’s fail­ure to grant him access to the state’s files, held by both the Portage County Prosecutor as well as the Portage County Sheriff’s Office, direct­ly con­tra­dicts this court’s [pri­or] remand order …. He also per­sua­sive­ly points out that the tri­al court’s con­clu­so­ry judg­ment deny­ing him access is fun­da­men­tal­ly incon­sis­tent with its pri­or judg­ment releas­ing funds for the appoint­ment of a doc­u­ment-exam­i­na­tion expert for pur­pos­es of review­ing the records. We agree with each contention.”

Noling’s case has drawn nation­al atten­tion, as pros­e­cu­tors have repeat­ed­ly obstruct­ed efforts to get at the truth. His case was fea­tured in the Injustice Watch series of arti­cles on ​“Unrequited Innocence” in November 2019 and in the pre­miere episode of the fifth sea­son of CNN’s series, Death Row Stories on April 19, 2020.