四名男子在俄亥俄州一名妇女被殴打致死案中被指控和定罪后，在过去的三十年里一直坚称自己是无辜的，他们可能很快就会被无罪释放。
自20世纪90年代中期以来，其中两人一直在监狱中，而另外两人在2020年假释前在狱中度过了25年多。
一名县检察官本周提交了一份撤销定罪的动议，称针对这四人的案件在很大程度上依赖于“一名可信度已经完全瓦解的证人”。
“我在这个案件中发现了严重的缺陷，引起了极大的怀疑，”洛雷恩县检察官J.D .汤姆林森在一封信中写道，他在花了一个多月的时间审查这个案件后解释了他的决定。
“我花了一段时间才到达那里，”汤姆林森在周三的一次采访中说。“我不想做任何假设。”
他现在表示，如果法官同意他的请求，同意对他们进行新的审判，他将立即建议撤销对他们的指控。
这四个人——阿尔弗雷德·克利夫兰、本森·戴维斯、约翰·爱德华兹和伦沃斯·爱德华兹——被判于1991年在洛雷恩杀害玛莎·布莱克利，洛雷恩位于克利夫兰以西的伊利湖沿岸。
他们的定罪集中在一名证人的证词上，这名证人要求为他的证词付钱，然后几次翻供。根据法庭文件，2004年，证人主动告诉美国联邦调查局，他对所发生的事情撒了谎，并暗示他的父亲参与了谋杀。
汤姆林森说:“这一切都依赖于试图敲诈起诉人的男子的证词。”他补充说，证人向警方提供的陈述也有漏洞。
目击者描述了布莱克利如何在她的公寓里被野蛮殴打，说椅子和桌子被推翻。但犯罪现场照片显示家具是直立的，没有血迹或挣扎的痕迹，汤姆林森说。“那是我的‘啊哈’时刻，”他说。
他说，也没有物证将这些人与袭击联系起来。
检察官说，他没有看到任何原始调查人员不当行为的证据，他寻求解雇的决定不应减少布莱克利的死亡或她的家人感到的痛苦。
“正义要求行动，即使困难重重。汤姆林森写道:“当一个案件不符合我们的法律体系所要求的高标准时，我们需要谦逊地承认，并有勇气纠正错误。”。
赢得最初定罪的前助理检察官乔纳森·罗森鲍姆(Jonathan Rosenbaum)在给媒体的一份声明中批评了这一举动，称汤姆林森将自己置于法律之上。
俄亥俄州无罪项目的律师劳伦·斯塔利(Lauren Staley)15年来一直试图推翻阿尔弗雷德·克利夫兰的定罪，他说，即使在联邦上诉法院表示他已经提交了实际无罪的可信证据后，早期的重新审判也被拒绝。
克利夫兰于四年前获得假释，他坚持说谋杀发生时他在纽约，有一名证人证实了他的说法。
“有这么多机会来阻止这一切，这有点令人心碎，”Staley说。
Prosecutor moves to clear 4 Ohio men convicted in 1991 killing
Four men who have maintained their innocence the past three decades since being charged and convicted in the beating death of an Ohio woman could soon be exonerated.
Two of the men have remained in prison since the mid-1990s while the other two spent more than 25 years behind bars before being released on parole in 2020.
A county prosecutor this week filed a motion to vacate the convictions, saying that the case against the four men relied largely on “a witness whose credibility has since unraveled entirely.”
“I found serious flaws in the case that cast overwhelming doubt,” Lorain County Prosecutor J.D. Tomlinson wrote in a letter explaining his decision after spending more than a month reviewing the case.
“It took me a while to get there,” Tomlinson said in an interview Wednesday. “I didn’t want to make assumptions.”
He now says he will immediately recommend dismissing charges against the men if a judge agrees to his request to grant them new trials.
The four — Alfred Cleveland, Benson Davis, John Edwards, and Lenworth Edwards — were convicted in the 1991 killing of Marsha Blakely in Lorain, a city that sits along Lake Erie just west of Cleveland.
Their convictions centered around statements from a witness who demanded money for his testimony and then recanted his story several times. In 2004, the witness voluntarily told the FBI that he had lied about what happened and implicated his father in the killing, according to court documents.
“This all hinged on testimony of man who tried to extort the prosecution,” Tomlinson said, adding there also were holes in the witness' statements to police.
The witness had described how Blakely was savagely beaten in her apartment, saying chairs and a table had been overturned. But the crime-scene photos showed the furniture was upright with no signs of blood or a struggle, Tomlinson said. “That was my ‘aha’ moment,” he said.
There also was no physical evidence linking the men to the attack, he said.
The prosecutor said he didn't see any evidence of misconduct by the original investigators and that his decision to seek a dismissal should not diminish Blakely's death or the pain felt by her family.
“Justice demands action, even when it is difficult. It requires the humility to acknowledge when a case does not meet the high standards required by our legal system, and the courage to correct a mistake,” Tomlinson wrote.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, the former assistant prosecutor who won the original convictions, criticized the move in a statement to media outlets, saying Tomlinson was putting himself above the law.
Lauren Staley, an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project, which has been seeking to overturn Alfred Cleveland's conviction for 15 years, said earlier bids for a new trial were denied even after a federal appeals court said he had presented credible evidence of actual innocence.
Cleveland, who was released on parole four years ago, had maintained he was in New York at the time of the killing and had a witness who confirmed his story.
“It’s a little heartbreaking how many opportunities there were to stop this,” Staley said.
