Sidley Team Helps Secure Executive Clemency Recommendation for Death Row Inmate

In a significant step forward in Sidley’s efforts to secure the release from prison of our pro bono client Tyrone Noling, who was wrongfully convicted of capital murder in 1996 and has steadfastly maintained his innocence, Sidley helped obtain a recommendation by the Ohio Parole Board on August 25, 2026 that Governor Mike DeWine grant Mr. Noling executive clemency. While one member of the Parole Board, former prosecutor Shontell Walker, fully endorsed Mr. Noling’s request that the Governor grant Mr. Noling a pardon, the majority of the Parole Board recommended that Mr. Noling receive parole eligibility beginning on January 1, 2029.

Sidley continues to urge Governor DeWine to pardon Mr. Noling to correct a longstanding injustice. As Board Member Walker summarized, Mr. Noling passed a lie detector test prior to his trial, and his conviction is marred by: coerced, later recanted confessions of his alleged co-conspirators; suppressed evidence by the prosecution that pointed to alternative suspects; refusals to test DNA evidence that could exonerate Mr. Noling; and prosecutors’ and investigators’ failure to follow up on leads regarding other suspects in what remain two unsolved homicides.

Earlier this year, Mr. Noling applied for a full pardon from Governor DeWine. The Parole Board held a hearing on his application on August 18, 2026 after interviewing Mr. Noling on August 11. Governor DeWine may now decide whether to grant Mr. Noling a pardon or another form of executive clemency.

Mr. Noling has spent more than 30 years on death row for a crime he has always maintained he did not commit. In addition to Mr. Noling having passed a lie detector test, the prosecution ruled out a firearm that Mr. Noling possessed as the weapon used to commit the murders, and DNA testing of a cigarette butt found at the scene eliminated Mr. Noling. Mr. Noling’s conviction was rested on purely circumstantial evidence, and since his trial, the prosecution’s key witnesses have all recanted — joining one other alleged co-conspirator who recanted on the stand at trial — thus leaving the State with no real evidentiary basis for the conviction.

In addition to litigating a variety of DNA claims, Mr. Noling has been fighting to win a new trial based on his Brady claims regarding the suppression of evidence of alternative suspects, including a reported confession by another individual whom Ohio convicted, sentenced to death, and executed in connection with another homicide. An evidentiary hearing on the Brady claims is scheduled for September 2026, and oral argument on the trial court’s refusal — supported by the prosecution — to allow Mr. Noling to conduct DNA testing of shell casings and other evidence is set for October 2026.

“We are encouraged that the Parole Board has taken a step towards recognizing the gross injustice Tyrone Noling has endured for decades,” said Brian Howe of the Ohio Innocence Project, one of Mr. Noling’s lawyers. “We hope Governor DeWine will pardon Tyrone and allow an innocent man to go home at last.”

Sidley partner and chair of the firm’s Pro Bono and Public Interest Committee Eamon P. Joyce added, “We are especially gratified that Board Member Walker understood precisely the problems that have long plagued Tyrone’s conviction. We will continue to pursue every avenue to see that Tyrone is vindicated and that he has an opportunity to be reunited with his family.”

Sidley’s involvement in the case spans many years, during which the team has obtained a series of appellate victories for Mr. Noling related to his Brady claims challenging the prosecution’s pre-trial withholding of exculpatory evidence. Since a March 2014 ruling by the Ohio Court of Appeals vacating a lower court decision and remanding for further evidentiary proceedings on the Brady claims, Mr. Noling has been seeking to present the evidence to support those claims over a series of barriers erected by the prosecution and endorsed by the trial court. In March 2022, the Ohio Court of Appeals reversed a trial court ruling that had denied Mr. Noling access to prosecution files needed to prove that the exculpatory evidence was suppressed at his original trial. Based on the evidence adduced, Mr. Noling moved for a new trial in 2025, which the trial court eventually set for the evidentiary hearing now scheduled for September 2026.

This case has been the subject of much media attention, including a powerful documentary, episodes of SundanceTV’s “It Couldn’t Happen Here,” CNN’s “Death Row Stories,” and the “Wrongful Conviction” and “Undisclosed: Toward Justice” podcasts by Jason Flom and Rabia Chaudry, respectively.

The Sidley team is led by Eamon Joyce (New York) and D’Juan B. Jones (Washington, D.C.). Sidley represents Mr. Noling together with co-counsel from the Ohio Innocence Project and Weil.

Since Sidley’s founding in 1866, the firm has cultivated a tradition of, and commitment to, pro bono service. Sidley lawyers and business professionals devoted more than 160,000 hours last year to serving those most in need.