Tony Miller
Lucas
County, Ohio
Date of Crime: December 14, 1983
Morgan A. “Tony” Miller was convicted of armed robbery and
assault following the robbery of an Arby's restaurant at 1455 Secor Road in
Toledo, during which an off-duty police officer named James Snead was shot. Miller had been in the restaurant minutes before the robbery with two
friends and even spoke to an employee who knew him and was leaving work. Although the robber wore a stocking mask, Miller was charged with the crime
after three witnesses identified him as the robber. One of the
witnesses said he got a look at the robber before he put on his mask. Another claimed that she saw the robber's face when he briefly lifted up his
mask.
Miller said during an interview that there is “no way that a real criminal
would drive his own car up to a restaurant, talk to a waitress that works
there and 30 seconds later rob the place and not expect to get caught.” He added, “I'm not crazy.” The restaurant employees believed the same
person had robbed the restaurant twice before.
A month after Miller's arrest, another man, Joseph Clark, was arrested on
multiple murder charges and during police questioning he confessed to
robbing the restaurant three separate times including the Dec. 14, 1983
robbery for which Miller was charged. In regard to this robbery Clark
maintained he shot Officer Snead after Snead shot at him first. Police
said Clark's confession was false because Snead told them he never fired a
weapon. Clark later retracted his confession for this robbery, but not
for the other robberies.
Both Clark and Miller were black males who had similar, although not
identical, facial features. Both were about 5'4" in height and both
weighed about 140 lbs. Because of these similarities, it would appear
the witness identifications were mistaken. At Miller's trial the
defense planned to call Clark as a witness, but the judge would not allow
him to be called after Clark said he would avoid testifying by invoking his
Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Clark's presence at
trial would have helped the defense by allowing the jury to see how similar
he looked to Miller. Also, Clark's refusal on the witness stand to
deny that he was the robber would likely raise doubt in the jurors' minds
regarding Miller's guilt. A detective at trial happened to mention
Clark's confession, but the judge instructed the jury to disregard this
testimony.
Miller had his two friends to provide alibi testimony, but at the time of
trial one was at sea in the Navy and never got the court issued subpoena for
his appearance or the airline tickets sent to him by Miller's family. The other friend had been convicted of armed robbery 13 years before and the
jury presumably used this fact to disregard his testimony.
The case was later featured on a TV broadcast of Unsolved Mysteries
which showed a picture of Clark alongside that of Miller. Following
the broadcast, a prosecution witness, who was never asked to identify
Miller, recognized Clark as the man he saw running from the restaurant. He had noticed that the robber had a pockmarked complexion like Clark and
said that had he known that Miller's skin was smooth, he would have
testified that Miller could not have been the robber.
Miller filed an appeal that included this witness's identification, and in
Dec. 1992 the Sixth District Court of Appeals overturned his convictions. In regard to Clark, the Court ruled that Miller's trial judge had “no power
to prohibit a witness from taking the stand based solely on the knowledge
that the witness will refuse to testify.” Miller was released from
imprisonment after the prosecution declined to retry him. [4/10]
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References: Toledo
Blade,
TB#2, Unsolved Mysteries
Posted in:
Victims of the State,
Western Ohio Cases
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