After serving 18 years in prison for a crime they did not commit, Derrick Wheatt, Laurese Glover and Eugene Johnson had their convictions overturned by Cuyahoga County Judge Nancy Margaret Russo on March 26 with ten years of legal advocacy from of the Ohio Innocence Project (OIP).
On February 10, 1995, 19-year-old Clifton Hudson Jr. was found murdered with multiple gunshot wounds in East Cleveland, Ohio. Wheatt, Glover, and Johnson, who were juveniles at the time, had been near the crime scene, but insisted they left the area as soon as they heard shots fired. Despite providing a description of the shooter to the police that was consistent with other witness reports, the three boys were eventually charged with the crime when 14-year-old witness Tamika Harris identified them. The prosecution further claimed to have found gunshot residue on Wheatt and Johnson. After refusing to testify against his friends, Glover was sentenced to 15 years in prison while Wheatt and Johnson were sentenced to 18 years.
The three men maintained their innocence since their conviction. In 2004, Johnson’s attorneys filed a motion for a new trial after Harris admitted she had never seen the shooter’s face and never saw anyone get in or out of the defendants’ truck. This motion was overturned on appeal due to the alleged gunshot residue evidence.
OIP accepted the case in 2006 and after a thorough review, filed for a new trial on the grounds that the test for gunshot residue was widely known to produce false positives. This motion was also denied. Yet in a turn of events in 2013, OIP received police reports that contained information that was never brought up at trial and revealed the existence of two witnesses who claimed that the shooter came from a post office lot and not the defendants’ vehicle. Finally, the mens’ convictions were overturned and they were released on bail pending the new trial. The next hearing is scheduled for April 14th.
Congratulations to our friends at OIP for this victory!
Read more here.