by: Lina Bryce
Ricky Jackson, 58, was sentenced to death for a murder he didn’t commit and spent nearly four decades behind bars. Now he will receive more than $1 million from the state for wrongful imprisonment, ruled an Ohio court on Thursday.
According to a release from the Associated Press, Jackson and two other men were sent to death row in 1975 after being convicted of aggravated murder outside a corner store in Cleveland.
Harry Franks, the 59-year-old businessman who had sold money orders to convenience stores had around $430 in his briefcase, which the assailants apparently made off with.
Franks had been beaten with a blunt object, doused with acid, and shot twice through the chest. Cuyahoga County prosecutors relied on the testimony of a, then 13-year-old boy to convict Jackson alongside two brothers, who were Jackson’s best friends.
The boy, Eddie Vernon, said he witnessed the murder, however, he was in a school bus with other children about a block away when the man was shot.
A now grown adult, Vernon recently signed an affidavit that the Ohio Innocence Project filed last March, admitting that police coerced him into testifying against Jackson, Wiley Bridgeman and Ronnie Bridgeman, now known as Kwame Ajamu.
As a result of Vernon’s now recantation and corroborating testimony that he had lied in 1975, the judge dismissed the charges against the three men in November.
Last month a judge ruled that all three men were entitled to compensation. The Court of Claims ordered that the state pay Jackson $1,008,055 for the nearly 39 years he spent in state prison. When Jackson was released in November, it was believed that he has served the longest sentence for someone wrongfully convicted.
Wiley Bridgeman – who was originally paroled in 2002, but sent back to prison several months later over an argument with a parole officer – was also released from prison in November. Ajamu was paroled in 2003.
Bridgeman and Ajamu haven’t received their compensation yet.
The judge can be heard speaking to Mr. Jackson in the video recommending to “know who your friends are” and that “everyone’s going to want a piece of you”, after the case was dismissed.
The men’s journey ultimately leading to their exoneration was bolstered by an investigation in a 2011 by Scene magazine.
