The Columbus Dispatch reported that an Ohio township's last-ditch legal move to avoid paying a $45 million settlement to a wrongfully imprisoned man has failed. The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request from Miami Township in Montgomery County for a writ of certiorari - an order telling a lower court to review its previous decision.
That case involved Dean Gillispie of Fairborn who won a $45 million civil lawsuit in 2022 against Miami Township for actions that lead to Gillispie's wrongful imprisonment. The suit alleged that evidence was suppressed and eyewitness identifications were tainted in the 1991 case against Gillispie.
Gillispie, now 60, served 20 years behind bars before he was freed and his name cleared with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro and Gillispie's mother Juana Gillispie. OIP is not part of the legal proceedings for compensation.
Gillispie was released from prison in 2011, exonerated in 2017 and declared wrongfully imprisoned in 2021.Since the civil jury decision in 2022, the township has been accruing interest on the unpaid settlement. The township appealed the settlement and in May 2025, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Gillispie and declined to lower the amount.
Since Gillispie's release he's been active volunteering and speaking in support of activities to free the wrongfully convicted. He has discussed at national symposiums how he managed the marking of time for more than two decades behind bars for something he didn't do.
Founded in 2003, the Ohio Innocence Project is continuing its initial purpose: working to free every person in Ohio who has been convicted of a crime they didn't commit. OIP has exonerated 43 people who served collectively more than 800 years behind bars for crimes they didn't commit.
Read the full story in The Columbus Dispatch.
The Dayton Daily News and SCOTUSblog also reported on the High Court's decision.
Learn more about the work of the Ohio Innocence Project online.
Featured top photo of Dean Gillispie on the UC campus. Photo/UC Marketing + Brand.
