Ricky Jackson: American prisoner found innocent after 39 years behind bars

Ricky Jackson

Ending a startling miscarriage of justice spanning nearly four decades, a judge in Cleveland, Ohio has exonerated a man convicted of aggravated murder after the only prosecution witness in his trial came forward and admitted he made up his testimony.

Ricky Jackson, who is now 59, is expected to be released on Friday after spending 39 years in prison for the killing in May 1975 of a money-order collector in Cleveland. He and two other men, who were brothers, were found guilty by a jury based on the testimony of a 12-year-old boy.

But at a hearing in Cleveland this week that witness, Eddy Vernon, who is now 51, stepped forward and confessed that, in fact, he never saw the attack and that the details of what happened had been fed to him by police. He was told that his parents would be arrested if he changed his story.

“Everything was a lie. They were all lies,” Mr Vernon told Judge Richard McMonagle. He had been on a school bus at the time of the killing and other witnesses came forward to say he could not have seen the murder directly. The prosecution case had rested entirely on his words.

“The scale of the miscarriage of justice in Ricky Jackson’s case is staggering,” Clive Stafford Smith, the head of Reprieve, a London-based charity that defends prisoners’ rights. He is currently involved in a similar hearing trying to exonerate British-born Kris Maharaj, who has been incarcerated in Florida for nearly 30 years for a double murder he says he didn’t commit.

“Much of what went wrong in Mr Jackson’s case is very familiar: a witness coached by the police into a version of events that would gain an easy conviction; a woeful lack of reliable evidence linking him to the crime; inept lawyering, especially for poor people; a jury or judge not willing to countenance doubt; and a ‘justice’ system where, once convicted, it becomes nearly impossible to overturn a sentence.”

“I can’t believe this is over,” Mr Jackson declared, thanking lawyers from the Ohio Innocence Project that had pushed his case forward. “It’s over,” he was later heard yelling into a phone to his family.

Source: The Independent, November 20, 2014

Ricky Jackson expected to be released today after serving more than 39 years in prison

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When Ricky Jackson walks out of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center a free man today, he will have spent 39 years, three months and eight days behind bars since he was wrongfully convicted of murder on August 13, 1975.

It's the longest known prison sentence anyone has served in the United States before being exonerated, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.

Jackson will become the 1,477th person exonerated since 1989, according to the registry, maintained by the University of Michigan Law School.

His release comes days after a witness key to his conviction told a judge that, as a 12-year-old boy, he felt pressured by police to identify Jacksonand two other men as assailants in the murder of 59-year-old Harold Franks.

"Everything was a lie. They were all lies," said Eddie Vernon, now 53, who testified that he first told his pastor last year that his testimony in the case was false.

Attorneys and court officials expect Jackson, 57, to appear briefly this morning in Judge Richard McMonagle's courtroom for the case against him to be officially dismissed. Then, he will be escorted back down to the county jail to fill out paperwork to finalize his release.

McMonagle ordered that Jackson be brought to his courtroom unshackled and in street clothes.

The Plain Dealer will follow that court hearing, set to begin around 9 a.m., in a live blog.

On Tuesday, after Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty conceded the murder case against Jackson had crumbled and the case would be dismissed, Jackson sobbed loudly, his head buried in his handcuffed hands, saying "I can't believe this is over.''

He thanked his Ohio Innocence Project attorneys and called his family

"I'm coming home. I'm coming home," he shouted into a phone.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Cleveland.com, November 21, 2014

Bittersweet pic of Ricky Jackson and his lawyers upon hearing
his case dismissed. 39 years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit.

After 39 years Ricky has nothing.

Your donations will be given directly to Ricky to help rebuild his life.

This fund is administered by the Ohio Innocence Project.

Again all money will be going directly to Ricky Jackson.

Click here to donate