After serving nearly 40 years in prison for a crime he did
not commit, Ricky has finally been exonerated
In 1975, a man was robbed and murdered in Ricky’s Cleveland
neighborhood. Days later, armed police kicked in the door of the home where
18-year-old Ricky lived. Based on the testimony of one young boy who claimed to
have witnessed the murder, Ricky and two of his friends were convicted of the
crime and sentenced to death.
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| Ricky (middle) |
Ricky believed that his case was forgotten, but the Ohio
Innocence Project was fighting to discover the truth. The witness who testified
that Ricky and his friends had committed the murder recanted and Ricky was
released. “After 39 years, I was finally able to walk out.”
Ricky is the longest-serving prisoner to have been
exonerated in the U.S. After his release, he met with his accuser, who is now a
middle-aged man. “It was important for me to go to this guy and say, ‘I
understand now.’ Because in a way, he was a victim just as much as we were,”
Ricky says. “I wanted him to move on with his life, as I was going to move on
with mine.”
Attorney Mark Godsey of the Ohio Innocence Project explains
that it took years of effort to exonerate Ricky. Attorney Brian Howe had law
students going door-to-door in the Cleveland neighborhood looking for witnesses
who remembered the case. Mark is a law professor at the Cincinnati University
College of Law and a former prosecutor. He says that, since its founding in
2003, the Ohio Innocence Project “so far we’ve freed 24 Ohioans who together
have served 450 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.”
Mark also notes that in many of the cases the project
investigates, the prisoners turn out to be guilty. “When we confirm guilt,
that’s what we love,” he says – it means that the real perpetrator is behind
bars.
Like other exonerated prisoners, Ricky still feels the
trauma of his time in prison.
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