4 Ohio inmates hope DNA can unlock their innocence
State's law one is of strictest in nation
Monday, October 18, 2004
Maggi Martin
Plain Dealer Reporter

Chris Bennett thought he was responsible for his best friend's death in
a Stark County crash three years ago, but now hopes a DNA test will
prove he pleaded guilty to a crime he did not commit.

Bennett, 28, suffered serious head injuries in the May 2001 crash that
killed Ron Young, 42, and did not remember much about the accident when
he pleaded guilty.


Months after he began serving his nine-year prison sentence, the memory
of the crash returned and he recalls being the passenger, not the
driver, he claims.

Now Bennett is among more than 140 Ohio inmates who have turned to
groups like Ohio Innocence Project, one of 26 nonprofit groups
dedicated to helping inmates who have been wrongly convicted of crimes.

In the last decade, four Ohio inmates who served a combined 45 years in
prison for crimes they did not commit have been freed from prison after
DNA tests unlocked their innocence.

A state law passed last year allows inmates to request DNA tests under
certain conditions.

The inmates must have significant time left to serve and must have new
evidence that can exonerate them. If an inmate succeeds, the state will
pay for the tests, which can cost as much as $20,000.

With the Oct. 29 application deadline approaching, local prosecutors
and defense lawyers are scrambling to prepare cases that will bring
convicted killers and rapists back to local courts to plead their case.

Innocence Projects across the country have freed 151 wrongly accused
inmates in the last 10 years.

The Innocence Project in New York helped free Clevelander Michael Green
in October 2001 after he served 13 years for a rape he did not commit.

Ohio established its own Innocence Project in May 2003 at the
University of Cincinnati Law School. Law students and professors there
are sorting through cases to find ones with merit.

The Ohio attorney general's office said only four inmates have been
granted hearings so far.

Mark Godsey, an assistant law professor at UC and faculty director of
the Ohio Innocence Project, said Ohio's law is one of the strictest in
the nation.

"Inmates have to prove with 100 percent certainty that the outcome of
their case would be different if DNA were tested," Godsey said. "In
other states they need only show likelihood."

Godsey said the restrictions mean very few cases will ever get inside a
courtroom.

One that did, thanks to Godsey's group, was Bennett's case. Godsey's
students found Bennett's mangled car in a scrap yard just days before
it was to be crushed.

They recovered blood and hair imbedded in the passenger side dash. DNA
tests proved they were Bennett's.

Godsey argued the case in Stark County Common Pleas Court on Oct. 1 and
is submitting written arguments this week in an effort to win either a
new trial or freedom. Prosecutors there claim Bennett's DNA could have
been thrown across the car during the accident.

In Lake County, Donald Soke, 37, is the only inmate there to seek DNA
tests.

Soke made headlines in 1990 spinning tales of mayhem and murder when he
confessed that he killed Eastlake housewife Karen LaSpina stabbing her
55 times during a burglary.

Now after 14 years in prison, Soke is recanting and says DNA tests can
prove someone else killed her.

"I falsely confessed to the murder. I could not have been the murderer,
blood found at the crime scene was not mine," Soke said in handwritten
motions.

He fabricated the confession, he said, to win favors like beer, pizza
and a jailhouse wedding from police.

Lake County Prosecutor Charles Coulson is opposing the DNA tests and
said Soke is not likely to prevail.

Much of the evidence from the crime scene has been contaminated or
destroyed after his appeals ran out, Coulson said.

Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Neroda, handling the DNA portion of the case,
said it was not DNA but the confession and witnesses who saw Soke
covered with blood that night that sealed his fate.

Godsey said Ohio doesn't allow more advanced DNA tests that are more
conclusive.

While other states have no time limits, Ohio's one-year limit denies
inmates the time they need to gather the crucial evidence that police
have trouble locating years after a conviction, he said.

That happened in a Summit County case where prosecutors have been
unable to locate the DNA that inmate Robert Crider is seeking. Crider,
55, was convicted in the 1983 rape of a Cuyahoga Falls woman and said
he was wrongly convicted by a witness who changed her description of
her attacker 11 times at trial.

In court documents, Cuyahoga Falls police said they couldn't find the
DNA evidence and a state lab said their samples were contaminated when
a power outage cut their refrigeration.

A case that may be headed to court soon in Summit County started with a
family so dedicated to clearing convicted killer Clarence Elkins' name
that they raised more than $25,000 to pay a private lab to test the
crime-scene DNA.

Elkins, 41, of Magnolia, was convicted of the June 1999 murder and rape
of his mother-in-law and rape of his niece.

But DNA evidence tested recently excludes him in any of the crimes. His
defense attorney Jana DeLoach is seeking a new trial and has a meeting
planned this week with court officials.

"Clarence Elkins is an innocent man," said DeLoach, adding that Elkins
has served six years for a crime he could not have committed. "This has
been horrible on him and his family."

Elkins' case clearly demonstrates there are innocent men in prison, she
said.

"Since this law will expire in a few weeks, it's very scary because
there may be others who can't get their cases filed on time.

"Even scarier," she added, "is the fact that the real killer is still
out there."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

mmartin@plaind.com, 440-602-4782

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