you ve got to understand, it s disappointment from the standpoint that those cases were well tried. in my considered opinion there is a very limited trial ability on many judges. they don t understand the full dynamics either of investigating a criminal case or trying a criminal trial. marino also disputed that he withheld evidence. we strictly followed the ohio law. if it was in my file, they saw it or heard it. in addition to what the law required us to give them. i gave them copies of everything they were entitled to. like marino, the state of ohio stood firm. and of course, after she gave it to me, they appealed it. so i had my retrial. but i couldn t go nowhere. the prosecutor s office began preparing for another trial. convinced they could reconvict joe and put him to death once and for all. we all enter this world with a shout,
seemed to be the approach. and let the truth fall where it may. in fact, in the tony klann murder case marino was cited by the ohio supreme court for prosecutorial misconduct in the trial of joe s co-defendant, mike keenan. i gave a good closing argument. and i ended by taking this big bowie knife and stabbing it in the evidence desk. that s the prosecutorial misconduct that was alleged. and my argument is you re criticizing me for stabbing this knife in the desk when that was the knife that slashed this kid s throat when they murdered him. i said you think that s the balance that should overturn the case? well, it was. because of marino s antics, mike keenan received a new trial. but once again he was convicted and received a death sentence. by 2001 joe d ambrosio had been on death row for over 12 years. his state appeals had all been
in order to prove their theory, joe s team would need to interview the alleged rape victim. but chris longenecker had vanished without a trace. the new discoveries in joe s case caught the attention of one of the most prominent law firms in town, jones day, which agreed to fight for joe on a pro bono basis. it was like night and day. it went from i have two appeals left and then they re going to murder me to now i have neil and all these resources from the world s third largest law firm backing me up. armed with the fact that prosecutor carmen marino had withheld information, joe s team submitted a sweeping discovery request to the federal district court. to me it just seemed like a logical question. what else is in there? meanwhile, the alleged rape victim, the only person who could corroborate what tony klann had witnessed, was finally located living in florida.
getting a new trial. but the decision would not come quickly. two years. judge o malley took two years to rule. finally, in march 2006, the judge released her decision. she overturned my case. she granted me my retrial. what i wanted all along. i wanted my day in court. she said, look, no reasonable jury would have convicted him if it had heard this evidence. when that ruling finally comes out, i mean, such elation. and you know, the culmination of 15 years of pleading and searching for the truth. because joe always said, the evidence will prove that i didn t kill anthony klann. carmen marino, who retired in 2002, strongly disagreed with the decision. disappointment.
and to me that suggests a whole other degree of violence. but then it went a step further because it was that the man who had been arrested for the rape was stoney lewis. the same stoney lewis who had first tipped off police that joe, keenan and espinoza might be the ones responsible for tony s murder. my heart just dropped into the pit of my stomach. and i m thinking, oh, my god, the deceased in this case has witnessed a rape. and the rapist is the man who s pointing his finger at other men. but if neil was able to connect these two cases in an afternoon, why hadn t police and prosecutors done the same? the prosecutor of joe s case was carmen marino. and it turned out that the prosecutor of the rape case was carmen marino. at the same time. so it doesn t take too much to ask that you put two and two