Court: Man freed from Ohio death row after 2 decades can't be retried

Joe D'Ambrosio
Source: Gamso - For the Defense

A man held for more than 21 years on Ohio’s death row – whose conviction was thrown out by a federal judge after ruling that prosecutors withheld potentially exculpatory evidence -- cannot be tried again in the case, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

The state had wanted the court to review a ruling last August by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of former inmate Joe D'Ambrosio, according to The Associated Press.

D’Ambrosio was convicted of murder in the death of Tony Klann, 19, whose body was found in a Cleveland creek in 1988. A federal judge ruled in 2006 that prosecutors had not turned over evidence that could have led a panel to find him not guilty and threw out his conviction. D’Ambrosio was freed in 2009, the same federal judge barred his re-prosecution in 2010 and a county judge dismissed the charges against him in 2011, according to The Plain Dealer.

"Today was 23 years in the making,” D’Ambrosio said in a statement. “Justice has finally prevailed."

D'Ambrosio is the 140th former death row inmate to be exonerated since 1973 and the sixth from Ohio, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

“What this case clearly shows is that the death penalty system in Ohio with all of its safeguards still makes mistakes and I think we’re just relieved that Joe D’Ambrosio had some extraordinary attorneys who worked tirelessly for … 20, 30 years to prove that he was not guilty,” Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Execution, told msnbc.com.

“This is a moment that really should give Ohio officials pause because right now they’re fighting over the lethal injection process and how those rules are or are not followed at the same time that the state Supreme Court has commissioned a task force to assess how fair and accurate is the death penalty system, and I think Joe D’Ambrosio’s case is a pretty clear indication that the death penalty system is not working,” he added.

Joe D’Ambrosio has just become the 140th death row exoneree, and the sixth man exonerated from Ohio’s death row. Joe was wrongfully convicted of murdering 19-year old Anthony Klann in Cuyahoga County in 1989. Following a 2006 ruling that overturned his conviction, Joe was eventually freed in March 2010 and all charges were dismissed.

Since March 2010, prosecutors and the attorney general’s office have been appealing the dismissal but appeals courts have upheld the ruling. The exoneration is made official because today (January 23, 2012) the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal by prosecutors.

Ohioans to Stop Executions and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty welcome Joe to freedom, and congratulate everyone on the legal team and everyone else who has stood by Joe and advocated for him all of these years.

Now it is time to Take Action!

Joe D’Ambrosio’s conviction was overturned because Cuyahoga County prosecutors withheld ten pieces of evidence that would have exonerated D’Ambrosio at his 1989 trial and implicated another man in the crime. Instead Joe spent twenty-one years on Ohio’s death row for a crime prosecutors knew he did not commit.

It's crystal clear that executions must stop in Ohio. No one should be executed under a system of justice while that very system is being closely examined to assess its fairness and accuracy.

This exoneration comes at a time when Ohio is already examining the many aspects of Ohio's capital punishment system. Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor recently established a Joint Task Force for this purpose which has just begun its work. The Joint Task Force should be allowed to operate without the undue pressure of ongoing executions. Currently, Ohio has at least six executions scheduled over the next year.

Today, Ohioans to Stop Executions again calls on Governor John Kasich to issue an immediate moratorium on all executions until the Ohio Supreme Court’s Joint Task Force completes its thorough review of Ohio’s death penalty system.

Please join us in sending a strong message to Governor Kasich that he should issue a moratorium on executions. Click here to send a message to Governor Kasich, and then follow up your action by picking up the phone and calling him at 614-466-3555 to say, “It’s time to stop executions in Ohio!”

Sources: Msnbc.com, The Associated Press, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, January 23, 2012