Imprisoned former officer loses appeal
Former Akron police Capt. Douglas Prade’s legal battle to be cleared in the 1996 murder of his wife suffered another setback Wednesday when the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the state had a right to appeal a lower court’s innocence verdict.
Twice-convicted and once-cleared, the 71-yearold Prade spent 15 years in prison until he was freed in 2013 by a trial-court judge who ruled that he had been wrongly convicted. The judge based the ruling on DNA evidence obtained from a bite mark on his wife, Margo; the DNA evidence excluded Prade as being the person who had bitten the doctor on the arm as she was gunned down in a parking lot.
Ohio’s 9th District Court of Appeals in Akron later decided that the trial judge was wrong, and the court sent Prade back to prison.
By a 5-1 decision Wednesday, the Supreme Court denied Prade’s latest appeal in which he claimed the state had overstepped its authority in appealing his innocence verdict. Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who was the Summit County prosecutor when Prade was indicted and tried, did not participate in the case.
State law provides “an absolute right to appeal a judgment granting postconviction relief,” the court ruled. “Therefore, Prade has not demonstrated that the Ninth District’s exercise of jurisdiction over the state’s appeal was unauthorized by law.”
Justice William O’Neill, who cast the dissenting vote, said the verdict was “an astounding miscarriage of justice.”
“The people of Ohio and Captain Prade are entitled to a fair trial. That still has not happened, and it should,” O’Neill wrote.
Cleveland attorney David Alden, part of Prade’s legal team, said he was disappointed by the Supreme Court ruling, but he said that Prade still has a chance to get a new day in court. Alden said Prade has an appeal pending in the 9th District, where he is “vigorously pursuing a new trial.”
Prade’s case was highlighted in The Dispatch series “Test of Convictions,” which exposed flaws in Ohio’s evidenceretention and DNA-testing systems. The Dispatch reviewed more than 300 DNA cases and helped arrange for testing in 30 cases. Six men, including Prade, have been freed or found wrongly convicted. Four others were found by the test results to be guilty. Attorneys with the Ohio Innocence Project have represented Prade for more than a decade.