CLEVELAND, Ohio — Charles Jackson retraced the same steps he took in 1991, walking into Casino East bar on Cleveland’s east side, that night he had no idea just how much those steps would cost him.
“I was numb and it just felt like it was someone else, I was outside my body,” said Jackson.
Apparently, there was a murder suspect in the bar that evening and police came in looking for the suspect and arrested Jackson, he was later charged, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison for a crime he says he knew nothing about. He was just 27 years old.
“I’m just standing there like I know they aren’t talking about me but they were talking about me and I was just stuck, I was stunned,” said Jackson. “I was ashamed, and my people was ashamed of me, I was a convicted murderer, and I didn’t do it, I was humiliated.”
That time in prison cost Jackson everything, he missed his daughter‘s birth after he was convicted, and he also lost his mother, his son and three siblings.
“They wouldn’t let me go to the funeral because of my case,” said Jackson. “I wasn’t allowed to go to any funerals, the chaplain at the prison told me my mother passed away a day after she passed away.”
It wasn’t until the Ohio Innocence Project looked into Jackson’s case, that his attorneys said they uncovered fabricated police reports and witnesses who incorrectly identified Jackson.
A Cuyahoga County judge eventually ruled that Jackson was wrongfully imprisoned and dismissed the charges against him, he spent 27 years in prison.
“The biggest issue I think that we see and why people are exonerated is because of police and prosecutors are withholding evidence of their innocence, exculpatory evidence is what we call it,” said Sarah Gelsomino.
Gelsomino represented Jackson; she’s also represented many other Northeast Ohioans deemed wrongfully convicted.
“Unfortunately, unless this prosecutor’s office takes this very seriously and makes some serious change in the culture and the way they prosecute crimes, we’re going to continue to see wrongful convictions,” said Gelsomino. “We’re going to continue to see people rotting away from crimes they did not commit and it’s going to continue to cost taxpayers a lot of money.”
This oversight has already cost taxpayers an astronomical amount of money, Ohioans deemed wrongfully imprisoned are entitled to compensation from the state Court of Claims for each year they spend behind bars.
Right now, the wrongful imprisonment statutory amount is $64,186.92 per year in prison. In Jackson’s case, he received more than $700,000 in total.
Based on Ohio Court of Claims data, since 1977 the state has dished out $58,186,458.05 on 118 cases, settlements have skyrocketed in the last decade.
News 5 asked Attorney General Dave Yost if there’s anything he’s doing to address the issue.
“I think the system is already designed to make sure the wrong people don’t get convicted most of the time, almost all the time it works, when it doesn’t, we need to have a way to make it right,” said Yost.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, Cuyahoga County specifically is among the top 10 counties in the country for exonerations, and Ohio is one of the top five states that has been paying out exonerees for wrongful convictions.
“Everything subject to human affairs is subject to error, we don’t get everything right,” said Yost.
So as that human error occurs, not only will taxpayers keep paying out, but most of all it will cost humans like Jackson, a debt that he says is unrepayable.
“They can’t give me enough money to replace anything that I lost,” said Jackson.
