Four individuals who have consistently proclaimed their innocence for over thirty years after being charged in the fatal assault of an Ohio woman may soon have their names cleared.
Two of these men have been incarcerated since the mid-1990s, while the other two were imprisoned for more than 25 years before being granted parole in 2020.
Recently, a local prosecutor filed a motion to overturn their convictions, citing that the case primarily relied on “a witness whose reliability has completely deteriorated over time.”

Lorain County Prosecutor J.D. Tomlinson expressed his findings in a letter detailing serious deficiencies in the case that raised substantial doubt.
“It took me a while to get to this conclusion,” Tomlinson noted in a Wednesday interview. “I was cautious about making assumptions.”
He indicates that he will promptly advocate for the dismissal of charges against the quartet, pending the approval of a judge to grant them new trials.

The accused—Alfred Cleveland, Benson Davis, John Edwards, and Lenworth Edwards—were convicted in the 1991 murder of Marsha Blakely in Lorain, a city located near Lake Erie, west of Cleveland.
Their convictions were heavily reliant on testimony from a witness who had solicited payment for his statements and later rescinded them multiple times.
In 2004, this witness told the FBI that he had fabricated his account and pointed the finger at his father instead, as per court documents.

“This entire case hinged on the disclosures from a man who attempted to extort information from the prosecution,” Tomlinson remarked, highlighting discrepancies in the witness’s initial accounts to law enforcement.
The witness had described a gruesome scene where Blakely was violently attacked in her apartment, claiming that furniture was disarranged.
However, crime scene photographs depicted the furniture as being in order, devoid of blood or any indications of a struggle, leading Tomlinson to his pivotal realization.
“That was my moment of clarity,” he noted.

Furthermore, Tomlinson emphasized that there was no physical proof correlating the men to the crime.
He reflected that he found no evidence of wrongdoing among the original investigators, clarifying that his push for dismissal does not undermine the gravity of Blakely’s death or the sorrow experienced by her relatives.
“Justice requires action, even when it poses challenges. It necessitates the humility to recognize when a case fails to meet our legal system’s high standards, alongside the bravery to rectify an oversight,” Tomlinson articulated.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, a former assistant prosecutor responsible for securing the original convictions, criticized Tomlinson’s decision, suggesting that it placed personal interests above the legal framework.
Lauren Staley, a lawyer with the Ohio Innocence Project, has been striving to reverse Alfred Cleveland’s conviction for 15 years. In prior attempts, requests for a new trial were consistently denied, despite a federal appeals court recognizing credible evidence pointing to his actual innocence.
Cleveland, who was released on parole four years prior, has consistently asserted that he was in New York during the time of Blakely’s death, supported by a witness who could corroborate his alibi.
“It’s disheartening how many chances there were to prevent this miscarriage of justice,” Staley commented.