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Thread: Joe D'Ambrosio - Ohio

  1. #11
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    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)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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  2. #12
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Prosecutor drops challenge to Cleveland man being declared wrongfully imprisoned in 1988 slaying at Doan Creek

    By Cory Shaffer
    cleveland.com

    CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley’s office on Monday dropped an appeal of a judge’s finding that a former death-row inmate was wrongfully imprisoned for two decades after prosecutors withheld evidence at his 1989 trial.

    Joseph D’Ambrosio, who was released from prison in 2010 after spending 22 years behind bars for the killing of 19-year-old Anthony Klann, is now eligible to collect from the state’s wrongful imprisonment fund. That stems from a 2019 change in state law that made people freed from prison because of police or prosecutor misconduct at any point in their case eligible to get paid for the time they spent behind bars.

    A judge declared D’Ambrosio wrongfully convicted in 2014, but the Ohio Supreme Court reversed the decision based on the law’s previous wording.

    O’Malley said that he still is opposed to D’Ambrosio collecting the money, but he agreed to dismiss the case at the request of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office, which court records show is negotiating with D’Ambrosio’s attorneys on a payout.

    O’Malley cited testimony at D’Ambrosio’s trial from witnesses who saw D’Ambrosio and two other men with Klann before the killing. He also described a proposed plea deal in 2009 in which D’Ambrosio almost agreed to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and kidnapping charges in Klann’s death but still denied killing him.

    Then-Prosecutor Bill Mason rejected the deal, and two months later the state’s key witness against D’Ambrosio died. A judge later barred prosecutors from seeking a new trial against D’Ambrosio and ordered his release.

    “Should people who are not innocent get money?” O’Malley asked.

    O’Malley said he and two of his assistant prosecutors told Klann’s father last week that he would drop his appeal and let D’Ambrosio collect the money, and Klann was livid.

    “He feels that nobody has stood up for his son,” O’Malley said. “He’s appalled that the laws were rewritten to enable a co-conspirator in his son’s murder to collect [from the state’s wrongful imprisonment fund].”

    D’Ambrosio’s attorney, Terry Gilbert, said Monday that the settlement was not yet final, and the parties agreed not to discuss the amount before the deal was done in the Ohio Court of Claims.

    “Joe suffered for so many years because of that prosecutor’s office, starting in 1989,” he said. “He spent over 20 years on death row, because he had to go through an unfair trial as recognized by both federal and state courts. Now the rule of law is that my client is entitled to compensation.”

    He also accused O’Malley of spending years and public resources pursuing a “frivolous appeal” of a law that he didn’t like.

    “Every juror is told by the judge at trial, ‘you may not like the law, but don’t let your opinion of the law get in the way of your duty as a juror,’” Gilbert said. “I think that Mr. O’Malley should follow that advice in his own office.”

    The killing

    Police arrested D’Ambrosio, Thomas Keenan and Edward Espinoza and accused the trio of abducting and killing Klann in September 1988 during a hunt for Klann’s roommate, whom they suspected of stealing drugs from them. Espinoza cut a deal with prosecutors and agreed to testify against D’Ambrosio and Keenan. In exchange, prosecutors allowed Espinoza to avoid the death penalty and plead guilty to lesser charges.

    Espinoza testified that Keenan slit Klann’s throat with a Bowie knife and, as Klann tried to escape by running into Doan Creek, D’Ambrosio chased him down and sunk the knife into his chest.

    A three-judge panel convicted D’Ambrosio and sentenced him to die. A jury convicted Keenan in a separate trial, and a judge imposed the death penalty on Keenan.

    Espinoza received a 12-year prison sentence.

    Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Carmen Marino prosecuted the case, and Mason sat second chair.

    New evidence emerges

    D’Ambrosio sat on death row until 2006, when a North Olmsted priest who befriended him requested case files and discovered 10 pieces of evidence that a judge later found prosecutors withheld from D’Ambrosio’s trial attorneys. The items included police reports where Cleveland detectives determined that Klann was not killed at Doan Creek because there was no blood or sign of a struggle, and the man who initially submitted an anonymous tip to police identifying D’Ambrosio as Klann’s killer had been charged with rape that same year in a case in which Klann was a witness, according to court records.

    A U.S. District Court judge threw out D’Ambrosio’s conviction and ordered a new trial in a blistering opinion that also called out Marino for withholding evidence in several other cases during his career.

    Espinoza died in April 2009, while a new team of assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutors was preparing for a new trial. Mason’s office did not tell D’Ambrosio’s attorneys or Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Joan Synenberg that Espinoza died until June, and the judge barred them from holding a new trial. Prosecutors appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and courts declined to reverse the decision.

    Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Russo in 2012 found D’Ambrosio to be wrongfully convicted because of prosecutorial misconduct and eligible for payment from the state. Cuyahoga County prosecutors appealed the decision and the Ohio Supreme Court in 2014 overturned Russo’s finding based on another case where the court recently held that the state’s wrongful imprisonment law was worded in such a way that required the misconduct to have occurred after the person was sentenced instead of during the trial phase.

    State lawmakers in 2019 passed bipartisan legislation that changed the statute so that anyone who imprisoned for any procedural error -- including prosecutors’ withholding of evidence -- was eligible for a declaration of wrongfully imprisoned. The lawmakers also made the law apply retroactively, meaning anyone who denied that designation under the old law could file a new application.

    Prosecutor fights new law

    D’Ambrosio filed a new request, and Russo in 2020 again found him to be wrongfully imprisoned under the law. O’Malley’s office appealed, arguing that the new state law is unconstitutional because it allows people who have already had their cases denied to get a second chance.

    O’Malley’s office provided cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer with a copy of a proposed plea agreement in which D’Ambrosio would plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping and aggravated burglary charges. The agreement called for D’Ambrosio to “admit his culpability in events that the State has alleged culminated in” Klann’s killing, and in exchange prosecutors agreed not to seek any additional prison time.

    The proposed agreement was not signed by any prosecutors or attorneys, but handwriting on top of the document said that Mason rejected the deal.

    O’Malley’s office also released a transcript of a recorded phone call that D’Ambrosio made from the county jail to his defense attorney at the time, John Lewis. Lewis was explaining the deal to D’Ambrosio and that he would be admitting to being in the truck when Keenan and Espinoza went up to Klann’s door and kicked it in, but that he would still be denying that he killed Klann.

    “Your point has always been that you didn’t do what Espinoza said you did, and that is a win for us because they are going to amend the indictment to reflect that,” Lewis, a Jones-Day attorney who took the case pro bono, told D’Ambrosio.

    D’Ambrosio responded, “right.”

    O’Malley argued that the call represents an admission by D’Ambrosio that he was present for the initial kidnapping of Klann, and makes him a co-conspirator to the murder.

    He also said that state lawmakers should consider changing the law again, because it allows people who are guilty but whose cases are overturned on a technicality to get big payouts.

    “I absolutely think people who are innocent and wrongfully convicted should be compensated,” O’Malley said. “There are cases where people are innocent. This just isn’t one of them.”

    D’Ambrosio’s attorney responds

    Gilbert accused O’Malley of purposefully misrepresenting the conversation between D’Ambrosio and Lewis.

    “[Prosecutors] offered him time served and were going to let him out of prison,” Gilbert said. “The catch was that he had to admit to something, and it wasn’t even a murder, and then he would be released.”

    Gilbert said that he has had clients who have eventually been exonerated by DNA evidence take plea deals that guaranteed their release from prison in order to avoid the risk of being convicted again.

    Gilbert also said that O’Malley’s office agreed to dismiss the appeal in exchange for D’Ambrosio agreeing to have his case file unsealed so that O’Malley would be free to publicly air his objections and discuss his case.


    “[O’Malley] wants to get his last licks in against Joe before he settles this case,” Gilbert said. “[O’Malley’s] wrong, the facts are the facts, the law is the law. Joe is a wrongfully imprisoned person, and no one can take that away from him.”

    https://www.cleveland.com/court-just...oan-creek.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #13
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Should be 1m for every year he was wrongly imprisoned
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