CLEVELAND — David Ayers says he feared for his life during the nearly 12 years he spent in a prison for a murder that evidence showed he did not commit.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit voided Mr. Ayers’s conviction in 2010, and he was freed nearly a year later. A federal jury in 2013 awarded him $13.2 million, a verdict upheld by the appeals court.

But Mr. Ayers has not received a dime, and it is unclear if he will.

The City of Cleveland says that it owes him nothing and that the judgment was against the two homicide detectives who helped convict him, not the city. It further argues that the judgment was erased in a bankruptcy filed by one of the detectives.

It appears Cleveland is planning a similar strategy over a $5.5 million verdict returned in September against a police officer who fatally shot Kenny Smith outside a nightclub in 2012. That verdict has been appealed, but the city in November hired a bankruptcy lawyer for the officer.