Newsworthy

Toledo Blade: 2025-10-28 - LCPO demands budget increase

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Following are the comments of NWOIC:

Let’s look at some real cases and you tell me if Mrs. Bates is protecting the citizens of Lucas County or protecting bad convictions:

#1

The new ‘CIU’ (which should never have been within her office) recently used $6-7K of taxpayer money to have a new, more sophisticated DNA test done on Joel Terry. Terry was convicted of raping his daughter and received a life sentence. The original DNA test found male DNA in the child’s underwear and so couldn’t rule him out as a suspect. The 2nd DNA test conclusively ruled out
Terry. So instead of testing the prime suspect (we know who it is), Bates and crew are fighting the case and you’re paying for it. Their argument? ‘DNA didn’t matter at the trial so it shouldn’t matter now.’

If it didn’t matter, why, then, did the prosecution use it so strongly to make it appear to point to Joel Terry as the source of the male DNA found in the sample?

#2

Danny Brown was arrested for the brutal rape of Bobbie Russell in early December 1981. Fast forward to 2000 and DNA testing not only cleared Danny but pointed to a serial killer – Sherman Preston – who beat, raped, and sodomized his victims in the same manner Bobbie Russel was killed. So Bates’s new theory was that ‘Danny Brown did the killing and Sherman Preston did the sodomizing.’

The prosecution actually may be right in that there may have been 2 people at the crime scene. A 2003 DNA test of the key that was used to enter the apartment showed male DNA…and it didn’t belong to Danny Brown or Sherman Preston; it belonged to a 3rd subject. The prosecution has never shared these results with any of Danny’s attorneys. Thanks to public records (that are seriously under attack), this test is available to the public – at least for now.

But wait – there’s more…the LCPO has been sitting on a bombshell since 1981. The prosecutor in the case against Danny Brown brought in a witness who testified he was called by Bobbie Russell to ‘rescue’ her on 2 occasions around Thanksgiving of 1981, the second time being a week before the murder. This witness provided the motive for the brutal killing by painting DB as violent and out of control. But here’s the thing, the witness, Randolph Lee McCoy, couldn’t have witnessed the things he said because he was sitting in the county jail between August 12 and December 17 1981, when he was discharged after his acquittal of a raping a minor The prosecutor in that case – which resulted in an acquittal, was Julia Reinberger (who became Julia Bates). She went on to handle all of the subsequent cases brought by Danny Brown in his quest for justice.

Danny Brown’s case has gone through the criminal stage, the appeals process, and three civil suites, each one being appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. Are you okay with paying the prosecutor’s office to hide evidence? A study needs to be done to see what just the Danny Brown has cost the taxpayers. Then add up all the other wrongful convictions. Lucas County takes the prize.

I invite anybody who has experienced police or prosecutorial misconduct contributing to a wrongful conviction to post it on our FB page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/601715072246650/ Don’t make claims unless you can back them up with facts.

The Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association wants to limit access to Public Records

Slipped inside the 5000+ page budget bill are some paragraphs that would limit access to public records – the life blood of an investigator’s work. 

The prosecutors in Ohio, and in particular, Lucas County, claim such changes are necessary so as to ‘protect the integrity of ongoing legal proceedings.’

NWOIC can present a number of reasons why limiting access to records has just the opposite effect.

Public Records need to remain PUBLIC.

The 44 year old case of Danny Brown is a perfect example of an ongoing legal proceeding. 

 

This video will show how public records revealed evidence that the state has been sitting on since 1981 and why we must not water down Ohio’s Sunshine Laws.

 

100 + wrongful convictions have been overturned, in large part, thanks to current public records laws.