Ohio to pay man $1.8M for his wrongful conviction
COLUMBUS — The State of Ohio is set to pay a $1.8 million wrongful conviction settlement to a Cleveland man who was acquitted of murder charges in 2014 after spending 18 years in prison.
The payment to Anthony Lemons, scheduled to be approved by a state spending panel today, is possible in part due to a 2018 law change that expanded who is eligible to receive money from the state’s wrongful conviction fund.
The payment was approved on Oct. 20 by the Court of Claims, which found Lemons met the legal definition of “wrongfully convicted” under Ohio law. That definition broadened via a 2018 law change, signed by thenGov. John Kasich, that made eligible for compensation wrongfully imprisoned people whose convictions were overturned due to police or prosecutors improperly withholding evidence for their trial.
The payment to Anthony Lemons appears on the Monday agenda for the Ohio Controlling Board, a state panel of state lawmakers and officials in Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration that approves spending requests. A message was left with Lemons’ attorneys. Lemons previously received $491,000 from the state in June for damages.
Lemons has faced a yearslong, winding path through the legal system as he’s sought to sue the state since his December 2014 acquittal.
State law says wrongfully convicted people can receive $56,752.36, plus lost wages and attorney’s fees, for each year they were in prison.
Lemons was convicted of murder in 1995, receiving a life sentence for killing Eric. B Sims, based mainly on a witness’s identification of him as the shooter. The witness identified Lemons from a police lineup based on a pair of Nike sneakers he was wearing. The witness said the shooter was wearing the same shoes at the time of the killing.
But during an appeal of his sentence, lawyers discovered that Cleveland police before the trial possessed a report from Nike that said the sneakers the witness claimed Lemons wore were not released until after the killing. Another report discussed other potential suspects in the shooting, but Lemons’ defense attorneys received neither.
The conviction was overturned in 2012, and prosecutors eventually sought to drop the charges against Lemons instead of seeking a new trial, in part because the state’s key witness died. A judge in 2014 ordered the case to be re-heard and acquitted Lemons when prosecutors didn’t present any evidence.
After Lemons sued the state, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Dan Gaul initially ruled against Lemons’ request to be declared wrongfully imprisoned and actually innocent. However, the 8th District Court of Appeals overturned Gaul’s decision in 2017, finding Lemons had been wrongfully imprisoned. But the appellate court upheld Gaul’s denial of his claim for actual innocence, which likely would have made him eligible for a larger payout.
But in 2018, state lawmakers changed the law to broaden the definition of wrongful conviction to apply to anyone convicted amid improperly withheld evidence, making whether Lemons met the definition of “actual innocence” irrelevant.
Gaul begrudgingly ruled in Lemons’ favor in an August 2019 opinion in which he cited both the new law and the 8th District’s opinion. Gaul wrote that he “(did) not fully agree with the outcome,” but he would not “disturb the criminal court order” and overturn another judge’s determination that Lemons was wrongfully convicted.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley appealed Gaul’s decision. In a split decision, the 8th District Court of Appeals in December 2020 upheld Gaul’s ruling.
O’Malley appealed that decision to the Ohio Supreme Court, the high court denied the appeal in April.