Wrongfully Convicted Ohio Man’s $45 Million Verdict Upheld (1)

The $45 million judgment obtained against a police detective by an Ohio man, who spent 21 years in prison for sexual assaults he didn’t commit, was upheld Friday by the Sixth Circuit.

The three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit also said Miami Township, where detective Matthew Scott Moore worked when he investigated Roger Dean Gillispie, must pay what the jury awarded Gillispie in a 2022 trial that centered around Moore’s misconduct during the investigation.

In an opinion authored by Judge Eric L. Clay, the judges rejected the township’s arguments that the verdict should be reduced because Gillispie didn’t provide enough evidence showing pain and suffering and that he may not enjoy the rest of his life because of how long he spent behind bars. They also said the verdict wasn’t excessive.

“What Miami Township does not address, and which formed the core of the district court’s determination, is the fact that Gillispie was forced to spend years of his life unfairly locked in a maximum-security prison, labeled a violent felon, and deprived of the opportunity to live a normal life,” Clay wrote for himself, Senior Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, and Judge Richard Allen Griffin.

Gillispie was freed from prison in 2011 after a federal judge determined that reports produced by township police officers in the investigation of the three sexual assaults for which he was arrested were never given to his trial attorney. Those reports eliminated Gillispie as a suspect, and Gillispie said a shoddy investigation by Moore—complete with a problematic photo lineup and procedure—led to his arrest and conviction.

Gillispie filed his lawsuit in 2013; the charges were formally dropped in 2017, and he was deemed wrongfully imprisoned in 2021. The trial, which proceeded with claims solely against Moore, focused on allegations of suppression of favorable evidence and that the detective was unduly suggestive to those who ultimately identified Gillispie in the lineup.

The appeals court also said the trial judge properly nixed Gillispie’s claims against the Dayton suburb and rejected other legal arguments put forth by Moore and the township.

Miami Township, during and after the trial, worked to try to avoid having to pay the judgment against Moore. The jury said there wasn’t enough evidence to show Moore acted in bad faith or outside the scope of his employment when he investigated Gillispie, and the Sixth Circuit judges saw no reason to disturb those findings.

A separate challenge to Ohio’s indemnification law also failed, and Clay wrote that the township’s interpretation “falls well outside the bounds of the law’s text and is grounded in an inaccurate reading of Ohio case law.”

Gillispie is represented by Loevy & Loevy. Moore is represented by Mazanec, Raskin & Ryder Co. Miami Township is represented by Faruki PLL.

The case is Gillispie v. Miami Twp., 6th Cir., No. 23-3999, 5/2/25.