CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Anthony Lemons was wrongfully imprisoned for nearly two decades because prosecutors withheld key evidence before, during and after his 1995 murder trial, a panel of appellate judges has declared.

The ruling handed down Thursday by the Ohio Eight District Court of Appeals clears the way for Lemons to seek damages from the Ohio Court of Claims for the 18 years he spent behind bars.

"We only hope that we can conclude his case soon so he can get fair compensation and begin to restore what the state has taken away," Lemons' attorneys David Malik, Sara Gedeon, Kevin Spellacy and Alphonse Gerhardstein said in an emailed statement.

Cuyahoga County prosecutors and Cleveland police violated Lemons' rights when they did not tell his defense lawyers that Lemons was identified as Eric B. Sims' killer based on a pair of sneakers that police knew were not available to the public at the time of the murder, the appeals court held in a 2-1 opinion.

But the court also found that Lemons did not prove he was actually innocent of the crime, a claim that carries a higher burden of proof than showing wrongful imprisonment and would have likely resulted in a larger payout.

The Ohio Attorney General's Office, which argued the case against Lemons, could ask for the entire Eighth District to rule on the case.

The ruling is the second step in Lemons' quest to seek reimbursement for his wrongful imprisonment. A person whose conviction is overturned must get a judge to declare them either wrongfully imprisoned or actually innocent, then file a civil claim in the Ohio Court of Claims and argue that they deserve compensation.

Lemons has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested on murder charges in the April 1994 killing. Even during trips to the state's parole board, in which his attorney told him he could be freed if he showed remorse for the killing, Lemons refused to admit his guilt.

It wasn't until his second request for a new trial in 2008 that Lemons was given, through a public records request, copies of police reports that showed an eyewitness's identification of him -- which was the only piece of evidence actually linking him to the crimes -- hinged on the pair of white and Carolina Blue Nike Air Jordan sneakers he wore in the physical line up.

The witness, a prostitute named Jude Adamcik, passed over Lemons in a photo lineup police gave her nine months after the shooting. But she picked Lemons out of a physical lineup, and told police she did so because Lemons was wearing the same sneakers the killer wore the night of the shooting.

But police soon learned that Nike did not produce that model of sneakers at the time of the killing.

Police and prosecutors never told Lemons' defense team any of this information at trial or during his first round of appeals, a violation of the rules of evidence that the appellate court found severely damaged his ability to represent himself at his trial and could have swayed the outcome.

Without Adamcik's testimony, "we simply cannot say that the state's other evidence in this case was so strong that it sustained confidence in the verdict," according to the appellate court's opinion.

Lemons was granted a new trial in 2013. But Adamcik died a year after the original trial, and Judge Janet Burnside refused to allow her original testimony to be used in the new trial. When prosecutors said they weren't prepared for a new trial without the eyewitness, Burnside declared Lemons not guilty.

He then filed a civil lawsuit asking a judge to find that he was wrongfully imprisoned, a certification that would make him eligible to sue the state for lost time he spent behind bars. Lemons also sought to declare himself actually innocent of the murder.

But in the lead up to his civil trial, Lemons' attorneys filed an amended complaint that omitted his argument for why he was wrongfully imprisoned, instead making only the claim of actual innocence.

When his attorneys sought to put that argument back into a third amended complaint five days before trial, Gaul denied the motion, leaving Lemons unable to make the argument.

Gaul heard testimony from several witnesses over three days and ruled against Lemons. Gaul went as far to say in his written opinion that Lemons should have never been granted a new trial.

But the panel of appellate judges held that Gaul should have allowed Lemons to reinsert the wrongful imprisonment claim in the final complaint, and disagreed with many of Gaul's conclusions and interpretations of testimony.

Still, they declined to hold that Gaul erred in his ruling on the claim of innocence, but took up the wrongful imprisonment issue and sided with Lemons.

Lemons currently has a warrant for his arrest on drug possession and falsification charges after transit police said they found drugs on him and he gave them a false identity during an October stop at a rapid station, according to court records.

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