Innocence Project stalled

The Ohio Innocence Project spent its first day in court Nov. 4 seeking to exonerate an Ohio inmate.

Stark County Common Pleas Court Judge Lee Sinclair, however, ruled against granting Christopher Lee Bennett, the inmate, a jury trial.

The group said it will appeal the ruling.

The ruling stemmed from a petition filed by the project to withdraw a guilty plea made by Bennett, 28, in 2001 and to grant Bennett post-conviction relief.

"It's a horrible decision," said Mary Macpherson, Ohio Innocence Project assistant administrative director and third-year law student. "It ignores all the evidence."

The Ohio Innocence Project is based in the University of Cincinnati College of Law as part of the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Institute for Justice. The project seeks to exonerate wrongfully convicted Ohio inmates.

Bennett is currently serving a nine-year sentence in the Mansfield Correctional Institute for aggravated vehicular homicide.

He pled guilty in the death of Ronald Young after their van crashed into a parked semi trailer in 2001. Both individuals were drunk.

Bennett suffered a torn frontal lobe and has no memory of the accident. Sinclair accepted Bennett's guilty plea and sentenced him in 2001.

Bennett maintains that his court-appointed attorney provided inadequate legal counsel and failed to conduct a full investigation.

New evidence developed by UC law students includes DNA evidence and eyewitness testimony and suggests that Bennett was not the diver of the van as originally believed.

In June of 2003 Bennett sent a letter to the Cincinnati-based group requesting an investigation of his case. Law students, serving a one-year fellowship, review inmates' requests and accept cases based on specific screening criteria.

Since its establishment in May 2003, the Ohio Innocence Project has received some 1,200 letters from inmates.

Students work under associate law professor and project faculty director, Mark Godsey.

Godsey and John Cranley, the group's administrative director, served as co-council for Bennett.

"[Bennett] said, 'If you can just find the van, you can test the windshield, you'll find my blood,'" Macpherson said. "We were incredibly lucky to find the van, one week before it was to be destroyed."

Hoxworth Blood Center trained students working on the case and tested DNA samples for free.

"Without the van, we would have had no case," Macpherson said. "We found Chris's blood and hair on the passenger's side of the dash. [The prosecution] could never come up with any explanation for how Chris's blood and hair got there."

Prosecuting attorney Kathleen Tatarsky said investigators found blood on a rock and paper towel within the van, but did not prove Bennett had not been driving.

"They found [DNA] on movable objects," she said. "So that is not conclusive evidence that Mr. Bennett was on the passenger side."

According to Macpherson, the paper towel had soaked up Bennett's blood from the passenger side of the dash and students found his hair in the passenger side of the defrost vent.

Additionally, attorneys sought the testimony of Lee Meadows, who claims to have been on the crash scene seconds after the accident, before the prosecutor's witness Ron Richardson.

Meadows testified that when he arrived he saw Bennett's arm extended outside of the passenger side window of the van.

"The fact that [Meadows] saw Mr. Bennett's arm did not conclusively indicate that Mr. Bennett was the passenger," Tatarsky said.

In a written ruling, Sinclair stated the court cannot permit Bennett to withdraw a plea of guilt without proof of "manifest injustice."

"The Court finds that the defendant has been afforded a complete and full evidentiary hearing in this matter," Sinclair wrote. "The petition and motions are, therefore, denied."

"The worst case scenario was [for Sinclair to turn Bennett] down outright which is what we got," Macpherson said.

The Ohio Innocence Project will now begin the appeals process, according to Macpherson.

"The prosecution will continue to advocate for the state and for the victims in this case," Tatarsky said. "We will continue to oppose the appeals of Mr. Bennett."

"It just shakes your confidence in the judicial system. I now refer to the 'judicial system,' not the 'justice system,' because there's no evidence of justice right now," Macpherson said. "I wouldn't call it a failure, I'd call it a roadblock to success; this is an obstacle we'll get around."

Innocence Projects exist nation-wide as independently run organizations working to free wrongfully convicted inmates.

Nationally, 130 inmates have been exonerated so far.