A wrongfully convicted Ohio man is free after serving more than 25 years after two eyewitnesses admitted to framing him.
Marvell Dixon wept when his attorney told him he was cleared, his attorney said.
“When I called him a couple days ago and said, ‘You’re going home.’ There was just silence,” Dixon’s attorney, Kort Gatterdam, told The Columbus Dispatch March 25. “He has been on pins and needles for so long.”
Dixon was 21 when he was sentenced to life in prison for shooting and killing a 17-year- old and injuring another person.
Dixon was convicted of murdering 17- year-old Douglas Harvey of Detroit and wounding of Ervin Nixon.
He was charged after Nixon told police that Dixon shot him. A second witness strengthened Nixon’s testimony.
Nixon said that he decided to say Dixon had committed the shooting after the two men got into a confrontation in a correctional facility in 1996 due to a gang rivalry.
Ultimately, Nixon admitted he lied.
“I made a mistake as a kid, pointing him out saying that he did something that he didn’t do,” Nixon said, according to transcripts. “I thought I was doing the right thing for a cause that wasn’t true.”
The second witness, Joe Robinson, supported Nixon’s assertion that Dixon was framed, prompting a May 2022 motion that led to Mixon’s freedom.
“Their case was the two witnesses who have both recanted under oath,” Gatterdam said. “The state has no case to pursue. The Franklin County prosecutor’s office will not retry the case.”
Nixon was convicted of perjury and sentenced to nine months in 2015. Robinson pleaded guilty to perjury and was sentenced to time served.
Dixon may be entitled to compensation under the law for wrongful imprisonment.
