After decades behind bars for a 1975 murder they did not commit, Ricky Jackson and Wiley Bridgeman have walked free in Ohio. The key witness, a 12-year-old boy at the time, said police coerced him into false testimony.
Tag Archives: Ohio Innocence Project
The Shame of Lorain: The Nancy Smith/Joseph Allen Wrongful Conviction….
Please sign this petition to ask the Governor of Ohio to Grant Clemency for Nancy Smith.
From: The Wrongful Convictions Blog, by Mark Godsey (on the Wrongful Convictions Blog)
I’ve decided to post some materials from the Nancy Smith/Joseph Allen case (also known as the Head Start case) here for those who watch Dateline NBC or Anderson Cooper, and then get on the computer and do some google searches to learn more about the case.
Here is where you can sign a letter to Governor Kasich asking him to pardon Nancy.
Here is the full Dateline episode on Nancy’s case.
Here is an important article on the case, The Shame of Lorain, that was published in 2005…
Here is the new pardon application that the Ohio Innocence Project and NYC law firm Davis Polk filed with Ohio Gov. Kasich this past Friday…
Here is the Fight for Nancy Smith facebook page
Here is the parole letter that the OIP filed for Nancy in 2007, outlining the reasons why she is innocent.
And here is a digital version of the art book, Illustrated Truth, with Nancy Smith’s story and her painting about freedom. You can purchase this beautiful and moving book for $30 by emailing Jodi at jodi.shorr@gmail.com.
Roger Dean Gillispie could be freed from prison
Dec 15, 2011
Via: Newstalk Radio
By Charles Van Sant
DAYTON, Ohio — Roger Dean Gillispie, convicted of rape, could be set free. U.S. Magistrate Michael Merz ordered that Gillispie be retried or freed by July based on evidence which had been rejected in the past.
Gillispie has been fighting his convictions for 20 years. He argued Tuesday for a new trial before three appeals judges.
Gillispie was tried and convicted of raping three women in August, 1988. The conviction was appealed in 1993. He had been serving a 16-to-50-year sentence at the London Correctional Institution. He has always maintained he was not guilty.
Much of the new evidence involves an “alternative suspect.” The defense claims the other suspect matches the descriptions of the rapist. That suspect, according to the defense, made statements to people he knew that were similar to statements made by the rapist.
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UC law students celebrate overturned conviction
Dec. 16, 2011, Written by Janice Morse
Law students at the University of Cincinnati were celebrating Thursday after nine years of work paid off: A federal court overturned the conviction of a man who spent 20 years in prison for rapes the students are convinced he didn’t commit, says Mark Godsey, director of UC’s Ohio Innocence Project.
“Just about everyone who has looked at the case thinks there’s no chance he committed these crimes…even the original detectives on the case think he’s innocent,” Godsey said about the case of Roger Dean Gillispie, who was convicted of the 1988 rapes of three women near the Dayton Mall.
Godsey notes that former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro worked diligently on the case, too, and Petro devotes considerable space to the Gillispie case in his acclaimed book, “False Justice: Eight Myths that Convict the Innocent.”
But he says Montgomery County prosecutors have said they will fight Gillispie’s release, and they intend to appeal a decision issued Thursday, ordering Gillispie to be freed.
A federal judge concluded that Gillispie, who was convicted of rape, kidnapping and aggravated robbery in 1991, did not get a fair trial — and he must be retried by July 1 or freed from prison.
U.S. District Magistrate Judge Michael Merz wrote in his ruling Thursday that the prosecution improperly withheld information from jurors. Merz said jurors never heard testimony that the original investigating officers eliminated Gillispie as a suspect.
Three victims testified that Gillispie was the person who committed the crimes. But Merz wrote that there was no physical evidence connecting Gillispie to the crimes.
Messages left at the Montgomery County prosecutor’s office in Dayton were not immediately returned.
Gillispie was sentenced to 22 to 56 years in prison.
The story of how Gillispie was convicted despite no DNA evidence is complex, Godsey said. But, in short, he blames “a misleading photo lineup with a cop who was telling the girls, ‘This is the guy who did it.’”
“This corrupt cop even lied to the victims, telling the girls that the suspect would look different than they remembered, because he had dyed his hair — which was not true,” Godsey said.
Gillispie had no prior criminal record and worked as a firefighter at a General Motors plant in Moraine, Ohio, outside Dayton. “He was a union agitator, and a supervisor who he didn’t get along with turned him in” as a possible suspect in the rapes, Godsey said.
“We found the original detectives in the case who were honest and revealed things that were withheld from the defense, including that the person who turned Gillispie in as a suspect had a vendetta against him…and the detectives had information that proved he couldn’t have done it,” Godsey said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.