Innocent Ohio man sues Cleveland cops after 40yrs in jail

Ricky Jackson (Reuters / Kim Palmer )

Ricky Jackson (Reuters / Kim Palmer )

Ricky Jackson, who spent 39 years in jail for a murder he did not commit, is suing the police officers who allegedly helped frame him. Jackson was convicted on the testimony of a 12-year-old boy who didn’t see the crime and later retracted his statement.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday
against the city of Cleveland, alleges that eight officers,
including detectives and their superiors, were involved in
framing Jackson and brothers Wiley and Ronnie Bridgeman for the
killing of salesman Harold Franks, which occurred in the
Cleveland area in 1975. Three of the officers involved in the
case have since passed away.

“This lawsuit seeks compensation for that grievous
injustice,”
attorney Jon Loevy said in the statement.
“We now know substantially more about the fallibility of
eyewitness identifications. Too many people have been sent to
prison wrongfully based on bogus identifications.”

Jackson, now 58 years old, was exonerated of the murder in
November and was awarded just over $1 million in March as
compensation for the decades he spent in prison. The case was
overturned after Eddie Vernon, who was 12 at the time, retracted
his statement four decades on. He said he did not even see the
murder being committed, as he had been riding on a school bus at
the time.

The seventh-grader was told by a school friend that “Ricky,”
“Buddy,”
and “Bitsey,” were responsible. The
friend, Tommie, had not seen the incident either.

Eddie told the police who he believed committed the crime and
“things quickly spiraled out of control,” the lawsuit
states. Eddie was questioned by police without a parent or
guardian present. He later retracted his statement, saying he did
not know who had committed the murders.

“The defendants told Eddie that he was lying and threatened
to put his mother and father in jail if he backed out. Eddie was
scared, did not understand what was happening, and began to cry.
Eddie’s mother was sick at that time, and the prospect of her
going to jail was very scary to him as a 12-year-old boy,”

the lawsuit added.

READ MORE: Wrongfully imprisoned men receive
$1.6mn in compensation for decades behind bars

The document also says that the police helped to fabricate
Vernon’s trial testimony, as well as investigative reports.

Following his arrest, Jackson was allegedly subjected to beatings
from the police officers. Two detectives “repeatedly put a
phone book on Mr. Jackson’s face and other areas of his body and
hit him through it so that it would not leave any marks,”

the statement added.

Jackson was sentenced to death by the electric chair; however,
this was later commuted to life imprisonment.

“On information and belief, Mr. Jackson’s 39 years of
wrongful incarceration is the longest ever served prior to
exoneration in the history of the United States.

“In serving almost four decades behind bars, Mr. Jackson was
wrongfully deprived of his entire adult life to date. Imprisoned
at age 18 and released at age 58, Mr. Jackson must now attempt to
make a life for himself outside of prison without the benefit of
the decades of life experiences which ordinarily equip adults for
that task,”
the statement concluded.

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