UC’s OIP helps free 29th defendant

After languishing in prison for 12 years for a crime in which DNA evidence implicated another perpetrator, Christopher Smith walked free on April 14 with help from University of Cincinnati law students, professors and attorneys. 

The Ohio Innocence Project (OIP) at the UC College of Law, took up the case of the Cincinnati man convicted in 2008 of armed robbery and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Michele Berry Godsey, a 2006 UC College of Law alumnus and former OIP participant, represented Smith both at his original trial in Hamilton County 12 years ago and in his appeal. 

On April 9, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Black overturned Smith’s conviction and issued an order calling for him to be “immediately” released. Smith and his attorneys thought his path to freedom finally appeared to be on the fast track. 

Instead, he lingered in a jail cell for five more days in what his attorneys call a “federal-state standoff” amid the novel coronavirus outbreak. 

Despite the federal order calling for his release, Smith’s attorneys say various officials defied the order by continuing to hold him in custody, first at the Toledo Correctional Institution, where he’d been serving his sentence, and then at the Hamilton County Justice Center in Cincinnati.  

The stalemate, Smith’s attorneys say, increased Smith’s risk for "serious medical complications or death from the coronavirus." Smith, 38, suffers from hypertension, a chronic condition brought on by stress from his years of incarceration, according to court documents. Those with high blood pressure appear to be at a higher risk of dying from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“[The state] has cared more about hiding its misconduct than justice and now even more than the sanctity of human health and life in an unprecedented pandemic,” Berry Godsey wrote in court documents.

“One would think by the state’s actions that Mr. Smith is Osama bin Laden or Lee Harvey Oswald, and the state feels compelled to ignore federal orders out of an emergency need to protect unprecedented national security interests,” she continued. “This is a bizarre case for the state to have doubled-down and ignited a standoff with the federal judiciary. It is also bewildering, shameful and heartbreaking.”

On April 14, a Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas judge also issued an order for Smith’s release. That same day, federal judge Black issued yet another order calling for Smith’s immediate release. Anyone who didn’t comply, Black sharply warned, would be held in contempt of court.  

Officials released Smith later that evening. He appeared stunned by his newfound freedom, said Berry Godsey, who noted that Smith, who shows no symptoms of COVID-19, will self-quarantine for 14 days before rejoining the community.  

“He started crying,” said Berry Godsey. “He embraced his son for a really long time. He called his daughter who was only seven months old when he got locked up; she wept when she heard his voice. As they were on the phone, a bus drove by, and he said to her, ‘Do you hear that?  That was a city bus driving by, because I’m outside, free.’”

For Berry Godsey, who waged a tireless battle to free Smith, the culmination of that journey was also incredibly poignant.

“I’m so thankful that I got to walk out the doors to freedom with him,” she said. “ It was beautiful. Heartbreaking that we couldn’t hug because of the coronavirus, but beautiful, still.”

Smith is the 29th person freed with the help of the OIP. Combined, the 29 defendants have served more than 540 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.  

The Ohio Innocence Project (OIP) at the University of Cincinnati College of Law — Ohio’s only law school-based innocence organization — is one of the most well-known and successful of its kind in the nation. Since its launch in 2003, the OIP has helped free 29 wrongfully convicted inmates who've collectively served nearly more than 540 years in prison. Read more about the OIP's latest exonerations below.

26: Ru-El Sailor released from prison after 15 years

27: UC proves innocence of Christopher Miller

28: Charles Jackson walks free after serving 27 years for murder

Read more about the OIP's earlier exonerees here.

Featured image at top: Christopher Smith celebrates his release from the Hamilton County Justice Center on April 14, 2020, from a safe social distance with attorney Michele Berry Godsey, a UC College of Law alumnus and former OIP participant. Smith served 12 years in prison for an armed robbery that DNA evidence later implicated a different perpetrator. Photo/provided/Mark Godsey