CASE SUMMARY
POST TRIAL PROCEEDINGS
Within two weeks of the Trial, Matt's trial lawyer Damian Vercillo filed a Motion for New Trial, arguing about the jurors’ heat being cut off at the motel and other discrepancies with the jury, but failed to include their signed Affidavits. It was denied.
Vercillo then got himself appointed to undertake Matt's appeal, even though it is not proper nor appropriate for a lawyer to appeal a case that he tried. Matt and Nancy prepared a second Motion for New Trial that was rejected, because Vercillo had filed a Notice of Appeal, and the trial court no longer had jurisdiction over the case. Matt obtained a limited remand from the Court of Appeals for the purposes of a hearing on the Motion for New Trial, but the trial Judge refused to hear it. No hearing was ever held.
Matt then moved to have Vercillo substituted as appellate counsel, whereupon the Court appointed the Ohio Public Defender's office to do his appeal. With the evidence obtained by Nancy and Ida, Matt, on his own, prepared a "Post-Conviction Petition" which the Public Defender refused to even look at, even though it proves Matt's innocence, instead focusing on technical trial issues, none of which have anything to do with the fact that Matt is innocent. When Matt filed the post-Conviction Petition on his own in 1993, they quit, leaving him without counsel from then on.
As for the Post-Conviction Petition, the trial Judge permitted the Prosecutor to file an untimely brief, four months past the deadline, which was riddled with lies and false quotes that were demonstrably incorrect from the face of the record, and then the trial Judge adopted this false brief as the Court's Opinion, refusing a hearing. Matt has never had a hearing on the evidence, despite the overwhelming nature of it proving his innocence, and the fact that the Prosecutor knew this from the very beginning.