CLEVELAND — Sometimes, the criminal justice system gets it wrong. Sometimes, it also refuses to make things right.
'The Dark Plea'
Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael P. Donnelly coined the term "Dark Pleas" to describe the high-leverage plea deals offered by prosecutors to convicts claiming innocence.
The offer usually occurs after the convict has uncovered new evidence in their case and is awaiting the court's decision about whether they will be granted a new trial.
But before a trial date is set, prosecutors swoop in with unexpected — and often irresistible — offers. After spending years, even decades, behind bars, the convict claiming innocence is offered their freedom. But there's a catch. The convict must first plead guilty.
"It's the legal equivalent of holding a gun to someone's head and having them sign a confession," Donnelly said.
How often do Dark Pleas happen?
When researchers at the University of Wisconsin reviewed hundreds of innocence claims across the country, they found prosecutors offered Dark Pleas in dozens of cases.
The researchers also found every convict who turned down a "Dark Plea" was eventually exonerated. Prosecutors either dropped the charges or the convict was found not guilty during their second trial.
Donnelly said the outcomes of those cases illustrate why Ohio should ban the practice.
"The airline industry is a great analogy," he said. "If it had an error rate like the criminal justice system has, I don't think there would be too many people flying."
Angela's story
"If you're in a desert and you've been in a desert for three weeks and somebody hands you a glass of water, you're going to drink it," Angela Garcia said.
Garcia explained why she pleaded guilty to setting a fire that killed her two children.
"I wanted to be able to go home and spend time with my mom and the rest of my family, she said. "I didn't think of all the other things that I would have to endure afterward."
Her story begins in 1999 when a fire broke out inside her East Cleveland home. She escaped, but her two little girls died from smoke inhalation.
After two mistrials, she was convicted of arson and murder in 2001.
"I was numb," she said. "I just couldn't understand that; how can I be going to prison for something I didn't do?"
Garcia expected to spend the rest of her life behind bars until she learned the arson science that helped convicted had been debunked.
In 2015, she was granted a hearing to request a new trial. But just before the hearing, Cuyahoga County prosecutors made an unexpected offer.
Instead of going forward with a fourth trial and risking another conviction, Garcia could serve just five more years. All she had to do was plead guilty and admit she set the fire.
With little time to decide, she took the deal.
"To be honest, I don't even know how they (prosecutors) sleep at night," she said. "For you to do that to someone, I don't know what kind of heart you have."
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Rick Bell, who prosecuted Garcia's case, and former Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty declined to comment.
Lamont's story
"I have to live with a conviction that I know that I didn't do," Lamont Clark said.
Clark said he had no choice but to accept the Dark Plea he was offered.
His story begins in 1992.
Clark said he and his wife were joking around in their bathroom when the gun in his wife's hand accidentally went off.
The bullet hit Tanya Banks in the stomach. She and the couple's unborn child died.
Clark said police quickly blamed him for the shooting. He was convicted of murder for their deaths and sentenced to life in prison.
But then, years later, Clark learned Cuyahoga County prosecutors failed to share critical evidence with his defense attorney.
"When I found out about the medical records, it was just ... gut wrenching," he said.
Before she died, Banks told medical staff she accidentally pulled the trigger, not Clark. But just before a hearing to present her medical records to a judge, Clark learned his mother was critically ill.
When prosecutors offered to immediately let him out of prison in exchange for pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, he took the deal.
"If my mother would have been healthy, we wouldn't be having this conversation today," Clark said. "I would have never taken the deal. Never."
The price they paid
Garcia and Clark both said they did not realize how difficult life would be as a convicted felon. Because they plead guilty, they cannot seek compensation for a wrongful conviction.
They said they struggled to find employment. It's been even more difficult to reconnect with family members, even close ones.
For Garcia, that includes her sister.
"It's like we don't know each other," Garcia said. "My sister is not the same person she was twenty something years ago... and neither am I."
What happens now?
News 5 Investigators wanted to know if Cuyahoga County prosecutors still offer Dark Pleas to convicts who may be innocent.
But no one responded to our messages.
We found, in at least two cases, Cuyahoga prosecutors dismissed charges after learning about new evidence.
We also found they offered Isaiah Andrews a Dark Plea.
Andrews was exonerated of his wife's murder after spending 46 years in prison.
Andrews turned it down, went to trial, and was found not guilty of his wife's murder just six months before his death in April 2022.
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