Lorain County prosecutor seeks to toss conviction for wrongfully convicted Ohio man

A day that OIP client Al Cleveland was never sure would ever come arrived on Monday, with a filing by the Lorain County prosecutor to throw out his conviction, along with those of three other men who were convicted in the same 1991 murder.

With approval by a judge, it would mean the end of the criminal part of a case that cost Al 26 years in prison, along with another four years on parole since his release in 2020. Two of those convicted in the case, John Edwards and Benson Davis, remain in prison today, with Edwards having been convicted in 1997 and Davis in 1994. The fourth defendant, Lenworth Edwards, was also paroled in 2020.

“It’s all happening so fast today that I really haven’t had a chance to process it fully,” said Al on Monday afternoon. “We’ve been working so hard on this even up until today. Right now, I’ve had so many ups and downs with this case that, until those guys walk out that door, I choose to regulate my emotions. But I’m overjoyed and happy.”

Lorain County Prosecutor J.D. Tomlinson has been reexamining the convictions in depth this fall. The four men were all tried separately for the Aug. 8, 1991, murder of Lorain, Ohio, resident Marsha Blakely, a date that alibi witnesses confirmed Al Cleveland spent in New York. No physical evidence tied any of the men to the crime, but police built their case on testimony of one man who claimed to be an eyewitness, William Avery Jr.

In his filing on Monday announcing his intent to vacate the convictions, Tomlinson said of Avery Jr. that he was “a witness whose credibility has since unraveled entirely. Avery’s initial statements to police changed several times and were made only after learning of a $2,000 reward. These statements became the linchpin of the prosecution’s case. However, before the first trial began, Avery demanded an additional $10,000 to testify. When this demand was denied, he refused to take the stand, later admitting that his original statements were fabrications made to claim the reward.”

Eventually, Avery Jr. did testify, but by 2004 had voluntarily recanted his testimony to the FBI, and in 2006, signed a formal recantation affidavit.

“During the course of my investigation, I visited the crime scenes, reviewed reports, trial transcripts, and testimony, and met with interested parties on both sides,” Tomlinson wrote in his filing. “I searched for evidence to corroborate the convictions, but instead, I found serious flaws in the case that cast overwhelming doubt—doubt in the physical evidence, doubt in Avery’s testimony, and doubt in the State’s ability to meet its burden of proof.”

Defendants in the case are all represented by separate counsel. Cleveland is represented by the Ohio Innocence Project at Cincinnati Law while Davis has counsel by the Wrongful Conviction Project of the Office of the Ohio Public Defender and Edwards has counsel by the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law. Edwards is represented by attorney Kimberly Kendall Corral.

Cleveland's case was one of the earliest taken on by former OIP staff attorney Jennifer Bergeron, who joined OIP in 2007 and worked diligently unraveling all the weaknesses in the prosecution’s theories of the cases over a number of years with several teams of University of Cincinnati College of Law students who were serving as OIP Fellows. By 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in Al’s favor that he had presented enough credible evidence of innocence that he deserved to have his constitutional claims considered on the merits, writing in their opinion, “It surely cannot be said that a juror, conscientiously following the judge’s instructions requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt, would vote to convict.”

Nonetheless, a later ruling in the U.S. District Court in 2016 denied him relief on his constitutional claims, and Al remained in prison until he was paroled in 2020. Now he may finally be on the verge of being completely free of any tie to a crime he had nothing to do with.

“I think I’m speechless,” said Bergeron on Monday. She became a Professor of Practice on the UC College of Law faculty earlier this year after finishing 17 years working on behalf of OIP’s clients. “I’m excited and relieved to have a prosecutor finally validate what I’ve seen for years in Al’s case. It’s the next step on an incredibly long journey to get the justice he deserves.”

The most recent work on Cleveland's behalf has been undertaken by OIP co-counsel Lauren Staley and Shantya Goddard. Both are former OIP Fellows dating back to their time as UC Law students who have long been aware of Al’s case.

“This is a case OIP has been litigating for 15 years,” Staley said. “Al was released in 2020, but he’s still on parole, and he still can’t do things like leave the state without permission. This is still weighing on him and his family tremendously. Al has done so much in the time he's been out, and he's really tried to make the most of things. But he won't truly be free of this as long as he has the conviction hanging over his head.”

“I’m just really happy for Al and his family, and Lenworth, Benson and John,” added Goddard. “After such a long journey, I'm glad they're one step closer to getting the justice they deserve. It's long overdue.”

All those working on behalf of Cleveland and the other three defendants have been rallying this fall under the heading of “Free the Ohio 4.” Monday’s filing is a huge step towards seeing those efforts reach a successful conclusion.

“I think this is a case where the people are winning, because the court of public opinion is the hero in this,” said Cleveland. Among other exposure, the facts behind these convictions were heard in November by an audience of millions on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where Josh Dubin, the executive director of the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law, was able to talk about the cases at length.

“By putting it in the light, the pressure that is making this move along is the eyes of the people,” said Cleveland. “It’s a win for them. I wish and hope we can get more cases highlighted in this way and people can understand the outrage.”

Remarkably, Al and his wife Roberta Cleveland have been married throughout almost his entire ordeal. She understands the emotions involved, having stood by her husband for 21 years of being separated by prison and the last four years of added stress due to parole. Today, they both go into Ohio’s prisons together to work with groups they have organized with a goal of helping the families of prisoners to be better prepared to succeed when their loved ones return to society.

“It feels surreal to me and now it’s here. It feels surreal to me,” Roberta Cleveland said. “It’s just like him coming home. He’s been home for four years, and sometimes it’s still like, ‘Is this really real?’ These moments captivate my mind, because for the longest time my life had stopped. You were waiting for him to come home. And now to be able to live and not have any collateral sanction on your back, it means we’re actually going to live a real life.”

“I just want to make sure I thank OIP and the donors,” she concluded. “The donors can’t really understand the intricacies of this machine and how every part of OIP is important. All that happens, the aftercare and everything, I want to thank them for having the heart to help, and that goes for the people working there, as well. All the students who worked and cried, studying the transcripts. I want all the students to know this is all their victory, this is their victory.”

The full text of the ruling from Lorain County Prosecutor J.D. Tomlinson is available online. 

Featured top image shows Al Cleveland, third from the left, standing with supporters. Photo provided.

Photos: provided