Ohio.com
An Innocent Man Deserves a Hearing
As Carrie Wood, an attorney for Noling from the Ohio Innocence Project, puts it, “Someone who has been sentenced to a term of probation on the streets has more protection than someone sentenced to death.” When non-capital defendants are denied post-conviction DNA testing, they have access to appellate court review. That is not so for capital defendants. They are shut out. Which means that state law does not provide equal protection to the range of defendants seeking DNA testing.
What since has been discovered is how the confessions were coerced, an investigator for the Portage County prosecutor’s office using familiar and nefarious interrogation tactics. He started with the 16-year-old. The friends have recanted their testimony, one before the trial began.
