Justice is blind – but has she no common sense?

The answer would be no, if you consider the long and sad story of Dale Johnston.

I followed his case when I was in college. Johnston, who then lived in Hocking County, stood trial in 1984 for the 1982 murder and dismemberment of his stepdaughter and her boyfriend. It was a case that was followed closely in central and southern Ohio – full of titillating and gruesome detail. Had Johnston entered into an improper relationship with the 18-year-old girl? Had he killed her and the 19-year-old boyfriend out of some kind of perverted jealously?

The jury decided he did, in spite of the fact the only person who claimed she saw Johnston with the couple was placed under hypnosis to come up with her identification, and in spite of the fact an expert witness who claimed a single boot print near the scene was Johnston’s was discredited.

Not only was Johnston found guilty, he got the death penalty and off he went to Lucasville, which then housed convicts headed to a date with death.

My classmates and I agreed it was hard to believe the state of Ohio had proved its case. Could he really be guilty? It seemed flimsy at best.

After several years on death row, an appeals court agreed the state’s case was too shaky to stick.

And so Johnston’s descent into legal purgatory began. The court merely ruled the state did not prove its case. Johnston, now a free man, was by no means legally an innocent one.

He’d lost everything. His wife divorced him. His home was gone. His job was gone. He hovered between guilt and innocence.

But then in 2008, another man confessed to the crimes. He is serving a life term in prison, without hope for parole.

So it seems simple. Dale Johnston was not only merely “not guilty,” he was now innocent.

… Or so you’d think.

It seems that when Johnston appealed to the court in 1993 to be exonerated, a judge said he’d failed to prove his innocence. When he tried again in 2003 for exoneration, then Attorney General Richard Cordray’s office took two years to oppose his motion, saying he’d already been turned down in 1993.

Being exonerated would be more than just a moral victory for Johnston, now 77, remarried and living south of Columbus. The label would make him eligible for compensation from the state. As an innocent man who lost everything and sat on death row for years, common sense dictates he certainly is entitled to some compensation for the ruination of his life.

Now, Johnston is going to take another shot. His lawyer plans to seek relief through an appeal to Mike DeWine, the new attorney general. David Singleton, executive director of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center in Cincinnati, told The Columbus Dispatch that it is “absolutely outrageous” that the state will not concede that Johnston is innocent. “It’s not fair,” the lawyer said. “They ought to find a way to compensate him.”

How can this be justice? Dale Johnston lost everything and very nearly lost his life for absolutely nothing. He did nothing wrong. He is a victim – misidentified by a single person, sidelined by an “expert” witness, found guilty by innuendo and inference. It should shock and outrage every single one of us – because it could be us.

The law, imperfect as it is, is full of loopholes and technicalities. The fact that Johnston asked a judge to exonerate him years before the real killer was convicted should not be held against him.

The whole sane world knows Dale Johnston is an innocent man, wrongly convicted. He deserves at least a token acknowledgment of that. Hopefully, Attorney General DeWine can make that happen.

Justice should prevail – and so should common sense.