By Cory Shaffer, Advance Ohio Media, Cleveland
A Ohio judge on Wednesday overturned the 2003 murder conviction of a man who spent 15 years in prison for a killing he didn't commit.
Ru-El Sailor walked into court a prisoner, but walked out of jail a free man after the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office found he wasn't at the scene of a killing that he always insisted that he didn't commit.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell granted a joint motion from Prosecutor Michael O'Malley's office and Sailor's defense attorneys, Kimberly Corral and the Ohio Innocence Project's Jennifer Bergeron, to vacate Sailor's conviction in the death of Omar Clark.
In exchange, Sailor, who's been imprisoned for 15 years, pleaded guilty to perjury and obstruction of justice charges for lying on the stand during his trial and received a 10-year sentence, the maximum for those charges at the time of his 2003 trial.
Sailor was given credit for time served, so he was ordered released from custody.
"It's a long that comes to an end," Sailor said in court, dressed in a V-neck sweater over a collared shirt, slacks and dress shoes.
Sailor was released from jail about 6:30 p.m. to a jubilant crowd of his family, who whooped and hollered when he came out.
"I ain't just the face of somebody who made it out," Sailor told a scrum of reporters. "I'm the face of many people who didn't make it out. There's a lot more in there, and we have to continue fighting for them."
Sailor, his fiance Amy Spence, and a crowd of family, friends and attorneys from the Ohio Innocence Project, left the courthouse, where a party bus -- named "Boss III" -- waited to take the group to Texas Roadhouse for steaks.
The day marked the culmination of a 15-month investigation by Russell Tye, who heads O'Malley's conviction integrity unit, the first such investigation to stem from a direct application from a defendant and not through an appellate court's decision.
"Justice was served for Ru-El Sailor today," O'Malley said after the hearing.
Umar Clark, Omar Clark's brother, came forward in 2010 and said that shortly after the trial that another man, William Sizemore, was actually at the scene of the shooting and not Sailor. But Umar Clark said in court Wednesday that he didn't come forward then because he didn't care who got put away for his brother's murder, as long as someone did.
But eight years later, as he got older and wiser, he said someone asked him what he wanted to see in life.
"I said, 'I want to see an innocent man walk out of jail,'" Umar Clark said, pausing to fight back tears. "That day, I vowed to just do all I can to see change and see this man right here come home."
No physical evidence ever tied Sailor to Omar Clark's death. He was shot during a confrontation between Cordell Hubbard, his sister Nichole Hubbard, and a friend over a $20 marijuana cigarette laced with PCP.
Sailor testified during his own trial and told the jury that he was out at bars with Hubbard the entire night of the shooting and that the two never separated. Sailor was confident that he wouldn't be convicted because knew he was innocent and told the lie in an effort to cover for Hubbard, his lawyer said.
But the statement likely damaged Sailor's credibility, and jurors convicted him and both Hubbards. McDonnell sentenced Sailor to 28 years to life in prison.
Sailor's guilt was called into question almost immediately, as Hubbard declared at sentencing that investigators had the wrong man.
Despite his attorneys obtaining affidavits from key witnesses who recanted their testimony, appeals courts continued to reject his requests for a new trial.
Former Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty also twice rejected Sailor's applications to have the conviction integrity unit examine his case.
O'Malley, who ousted McGinty in the 2016 Democratic primary election, agreed to review the case in January 2017 and, after 15 months of tracking down witnesses, corroborated Sailor's claims that he wasn't there. O'Malley agreed to vacate his conviction but insisted that he plead guilty to lying under oath.
In court Wednesday, O'Malley acknowledged that it was "unfortunate" that Sailor's trial took place, and turned to his comments to Sailor's false testimony.
"Mr. Sailor has acknowledged the wrong that he committed in that trial," O'Malley said in court Wednesday. "It's been a long, hard lesson."
Sailor apologized to McDonnell for lying in the stand, and to Umar Clark for trying to cover for Hubbard.
McDonnell, who oversaw Sailor's trial and denied two of his requests for a new trial, told Sailor his conviction was his fault for lying in court to try and cover for Hubbard.
"If you would have just told the truth, you wouldn't have spent the last 15 years in prison," McDonnell said. "You put yourself in prison."
Spence said the way Sailor was spoken to, in the same moment that the murder conviction that he spent 15 years in imprisoned for was dropped, was upsetting.
"He was spoken to like he's a criminal and he's not a criminal. He's innocent," she said. "He did what he did because he was young and naive. I just don't want people to think he's a bad person, because he's not a bad person."
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