Ohio Appeals Court Rules Prosecutors Cannot Use Witness Testimony in Retrial of Elwood Jones | Death Penalty Information Center

Ohio Appeals Court Rules Prosecutors Cannot Use Witness Testimony in Retrial of Elwood Jones | Death Penalty Information Center

In late August 2025, the First District Court of Appeals of Ohio ruled that Hamilton County pros­e­cu­tors can­not use pri­or wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny in their retri­al of Elwood Jones, who was on Ohio’s death row for 27 years until he was grant­ed a new tri­al in December 2022. Mr. Jones was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of Rhoda Nathan in a Blue Ash, Ohio, hotel in 1994, despite con­sis­tent­ly main­tain­ing his inno­cence. …