A new initiative designed to right wrongful convictions in Hamilton County has its first director.
Prosecutor Connie Pillich announced Tuesday she's selected Ohio Innocence Project staff attorney and UC law professor Donald Caster to lead her office's Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU).
The announcement comes as high-profile wrongful convictions have drawn attention in Greater Cincinnati, including the case of Elwood Jones, who was convicted of murder in Hamilton County courts in 1996. He spent 27 years on death row before questions about evidence prosecutors withheld at trial convinced a court to grant him a new trial. Pillich announced late last year her office would drop charges against him.
The case and others like it have raised questions about past misconduct by prosecutors. WVXU took part in an investigative series around prosecutorial misconduct in Ohio in 2023.
The newly-created CIU will accept applications via a process outlined on the prosecutor's website from people who believe they were wrongfully convicted of felonies in Hamilton County Commons Pleas Court. The unit will likely focus on those who are still incarcerated and will follow best practices set by other CIU projects across the country.
"We don't just look at an application and say, 'oops, you were wrongfully convicted, let's do something about it,' " Caster says. "We reinvestigate the case. We gather all the documents we can gather. Depending on where the documents lead us, we may reinterview or interview witnesses who may not have come forward at the time of the crime. We start to drill down and see if we can get a good sense of what actually happened."
Pillich says her office has been working on the initiative for a year and a half. A board of community leaders identified five semi-finalists, who were then narrowed down to three finalists.
Pillich says Caster, who spent 14 years with the Innocence Project as an attorney and University of Cincinnati law professor, was the perfect choice. Pillich notes the Innocence Project has freed 43 wrongfully convicted Ohioans who served a collective 800 years in prison.
"He is definitely a leading voice across Ohio in attacking wrongful convictions and seeking post-conviction justice," she says.
Prior to his work with the Innocence Project, Caster spent time in the Butler County Prosecutor's Office appellate division.
Pillich says this will be the sixth such unit in Ohio. Cuyahoga County Prosecutors established one in 2014, for example. Franklin County Prosecutors started a similar unit in 2023.
Hamilton County's unit will also include a detective and a paralegal to look into past convictions that might have sent innocent people to prison. Hamilton County Commissioners approved $300,000 for the project.
Caster says the unit will focus on past cases and will not be involved in ongoing prosecutions. Pillich says she's working to hire a "Professional Responsibility Officer" who would oversee the ethics of prosecutions in progress.
"Just like everyone else in this office, my goal is to do justice," Caster says. "No one in this office wants to be part of a wrongful conviction and anyone in this office who was aware of one would want to correct it as soon as possible. My goal is to drill down and focus on that."
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