Injustice in the justice system
Ronnie was 17 years old when he, along with his brother (Wylie Bridgeman) and friend (Ricky Jackson), were sent to death row for the alleged 1975 murder of money-transmitter Harold Franks. In 1978, the sentence was reclassified to life imprisonment in connection with the abolition of capital punishment in Ohio.
The only evidence of their guilt was the testimony of 12-year-old teenager Eddie Vernon, who claimed that he saw the moment of the attack.
And only after almost 40 years, Vernon admitted that he had slandered Ronnie and his friends under pressure from detectives, which became the basis for a review of the case with their subsequent acquittal.
Pictured is Ronnie Bridgeman crying after being finally acquitted in a court in Cleveland, USA, December 9, 2014
A court in the United States on Thursday, March 17, 2015, decided to pay a former prisoner who wrongly served about 39 years in prison, compensation in the amount of more than $1 million.