Judge can decide whether Cleveland death-row inmate released in 2009 was wrongfully imprisoned
A Cuyahoga County judge can hear the case of former death row inmate Joe D'Ambrosio, who argues that he was wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years after his conviction was overturned
A judge in Cuyahoga County can decide whether a former Cleveland death-row inmate released from prison in 2009 was wrongfully imprisoned, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
The court rejected an argument by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley’s office that Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Russo had no jurisdiction to hear Joseph D’Ambrosio’s request to be declared wrongfully imprisoned for the two decades he spent in prison on a 1989 conviction in the death of Tony Klann.
Such a declaration would open the door for D’Ambrosio to receive money from the state’s Court of Claims.
In the per curiam opinion, the court noted that O’Malley’s office made a compelling argument that D’Ambrosio lacked the ability to pursue his claim, but Russo has the ability to make that decision, the court found.
Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and justices Judith French, Patrick Fischer, Patrick DeWine, and Melody Stewart joined the opinion. Justice Sharon Kennedy concurred in judgment only, and Justice Michael Donnelly, a former Common Pleas judge alongside Russo, did not participate in the case.
The ruling marks another turn in a protracted legal battle.
D’Ambrosio was released from prison in 2009, 3 years after a federal judge overturned his conviction and found that prosecutors, including now-retired Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Carmen Marino, withheld 10 key pieces of evidence that might have led to a jury finding D’Ambrosio not guilty at trial.
Common Pleas Court Judge Joan Synenberg dismissed all charges against D’Ambrosio the following year.
Klann’s body was found floating in Doan Brook in what is now Cleveland’s Rockefeller Park. His throat had been slit. Prosecutors had argued that D’Ambrosio and 2 other men -- Thomas Michael Keenan and Edward Espinoza, kidnapped Klann off the street, drove him to the creek and slit his throat with a bowie knife.
Espinoza cut a deal with prosecutors and testified against D’Ambrosio and Keenan, who were convicted and sentenced to death.
Keenan’s conviction was also overturned for the same reason as D’Ambrosio’s. Keenan in 2016 pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and other charges, was sentenced to time served, and was released from prison.
D’Ambrosio has maintained his innocence in the killing, but prosecutors insist that he participated in Klann’s kidnapping.
The case was featured in a 2014 CNN documentary.
(source: cleveland.com)
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