Entries tagged with “Joe D'Ambrosio”
Issues
Sep 28, 2021
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…
Issues
Feb 23, 2021
Ohio Legislators Launch Bipartisan Effort to Repeal State’s Death Penalty
A bipartisan group of legislators has announced the introduction of a bill to repeal Ohio’s death penalty. In a virtual press conference on February 18, 2021, four Republican and four Democratic legislators spoke about the latest effort to end capital punishment in the Buckeye State. “Like so many Ohioans, I once supported capital punishment and over time, with prayer and reflection have come to believe it’s the wrong policy for the state of Ohio,” said Sen. Steve Huffman (R – Tipp City…
Issues
Sep 10, 2020
Eight Years After Exoneration, Court Declares Joe D’Ambrosio ‘Wrongfully Imprisoned’
Eight years after his exoneration from death row, an Ohio trial court judge has declared that Joe D’Ambrosio (pictured) was “wrongfully imprisoned.” The August 31, 2020 ruling by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Russo moves D’Ambrosio one step closer to receiving compensation for the more than two decades he spent on death row as a result of prosecutorial misconduct. D’Ambrosio first filed suit seeking a declaration of wrongful imprisonment in 2012, after the federal courts had…
Issues
Apr 06, 2020
Outlier Counties: Melvin Bonnell Seeks New Trial After Defense Discovers Evidence That Cuyahoga County Prosecutors Had Withheld for Decades
Ohio death-row prisoner Melvin Bonnell (pictured) has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to vacate his conviction and death sentence after his lawyers discovered physical evidence from his case that Cuyahoga County prosecutors had repeatedly insisted since the mid-1990s had been lost or destroyed. Bonnell was scheduled to be executed February 12, 2020, but received a reprieve in December 2019 because of what Governor Mike DeWine described as “ongoing problems” in obtaining execution drugs. Saying…
Issues
Jan 23, 2012
INNOCENCE: Ohio’s “Substantial Inequitable Conduct” Leads to Nation’s 140th Death Row Exoneration
On January 23, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the state of Ohio challenging the unconditional writ of habeas corpus and bar to the re-prosecution of Joe D’Ambrosio (pictured), thus ending the capital case. He has now been freed from death row with all charges dismissed. A federal District Court had first overturned D’Ambrosio’s conviction in 2006 because the state had withheld key evidence from the defense. The federal court originally allowed the state to…
Issues
Mar 04, 2010
After 20 Years, Ohio Death Row Inmate May Be Exonerated
On March 3, a federal District Court barred the re-prosecution of former Ohio death row inmate Joe D’Ambrosio (pictured) for the murder of Tony Klann over 22 years ago. The court had ruled in 2006 that state prosecutors improperly withheld evidence about their star witness that could have exonerated D’Ambrosio at his 1989 trial. That ruling led to D’Ambrosio’s conviction and death sentence being vacated, and he was eventually released on bond pending a possible retrial. But the state delayed…