Program at Law School Celebrates Freedom for Clarence Elkins

Thousands of hours of legal efforts and one man’s ordeal of more than 65,000 hours spent wrongfully imprisoned – they all drew to a final conclusion of justice realized on Feb. 14 at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

An audience of more than 200 gathered to hear from Clarence Elkins, the first prisoner to be exonerated via the efforts of the Ohio Innocence Project, which is based out of the UC College of Law’s Rosenthal Institute for Justice.

Elkins, his wife Melinda, Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro and UC Associate Professor of Law Mark Godsey all made remarks and talked about their experiences. UC law student and Ohio Innocence Project member Unkyong Ho introduced Clarence, and her Innocence Project colleagues joined in answering questions from the audience.

For those who missed the program, it can still be viewed as an archived Webcast.

The soft-spoken Elkins expressed gratitude towards the students and others who worked for his freedom. "You make changes in people’s lives, like you did in mine, (changes) for the good," he said.

"This is a day we n the Innocence Project have been waiting on for a long, long time," said Godsey, who also serves as faculty director for the Ohio Innocence Project. "It’s a day that Clarence and Melinda Elkins have been waiting for even longer."

From the time that the Ohio Innocence Project became involved with the case less than two years ago, a number of developments seemed to put Elkins on the verge of being exonerated. But each time, Elkins’ supporters saw their hopes dashed.

An appeal of his original conviction that had him serving a life sentence for the murder of his mother-in-law and rape of his niece came up empty, despite the presentation of proof that no DNA evidence tied Elkins to the crime scene.

Later, after a fortuitous coincidence put Elkins in the same area as another prisoner who the Innocence Project team felt could be a suspect in the crime, Elkins was able to collect a cigarette butt that the prisoner had just put down. That was used to test the DNA of that prisoner, and it came up a match with DNA evidence left at the crime scene.

Still, that was not enough to gain Elkins’ release, a development that caused Petro, who had become interested in the case, to speak out on Elkins’ behalf.

To call Petro, the state’s top law enforcement official, an unusual ally would be a major understatement, according to Godsey. "When I share with other Innocence Project directors around the country who it was that was helping us, they were just blown away," said Godsey. "They had never heard of this (happening before)."

As a lawyer for 33 years, Petro said he tried to think of Elkins’ case in light of the oath he took as a prosecutor, "where your role is not just to convict, but to seek justice."

He particularly identified with Melinda Elkins, who he called one of the most courageous and determined individuals he had ever encountered.

Melinda, who went through the ordeal of in one morning finding out her mother had been killed, her niece attacked and her husband arrested for the crime – even though he had been with her the entire previous evening, never was willing to give up on fighting for Clarence’s release.

"She decided at her mother’s funeral that she would be the one to solve this crime," Godsey said.

"More than I can relate to you, it was a nightmare over the last seven-and-a-half years," she said.

But all of that came to an end with Clarence Elkins’ release on Dec. 15, 2005. The program on Feb. 14 allowed all the participants to come together and celebrate an outcome they had hoped for, but couldn’t be sure of until the day it happened.

"I believed from Day One and never gave up," said Elkins. "You just have to believe in yourself and find out who you really are."