TOLEDO, Ohio — On Friday, Ohio's 6th District Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for a man convicted in a triple murder in Toledo over 15 years ago.
In 2006, 3 men - Kenneth Nicholson, Todd Archambeau, and Michael York - were murdered in Toledo's south end.
Stoney Thompson was arrested for the murders alongside his brother Goldy.
The men were tried separately, in front of different juries, but they both faced the same charges and same argument from prosecutors.
Stoney Thompson was convicted on 3 counts of complicity to commit murder in his trial.
In the subsequent trial, Goldy was acquitted.
A key difference between the two trials was the contents of boxes of evidence that were not given to Thompson's defense team but were given to Goldy’s.
The 6th District Court of Appeals said it was this withholding of evidence by prosecutors that led to their ruling.
That ruling gives the Lucas County Prosecutor's Office the option to retry the case, appeal the decision to the Ohio Supreme Court, or let Thompson out of jail.
The prosecutor's office has 45 days to decide.
The case was a passion project for the late University of Toledo professor Debbie Rump who was appointed by the court to handle Thompson’s appeal.
Rump died in 2018.
Michael Stahl took over the case when Rump died.
Stahl was a former student of Rump’s and was with Rump in 2017 when they first saw the withheld evidence - 11 years after the murders.
"We weren't anticipating seeing what we did see - boxes of copious documentation as well as videos - all very important," said Stahl in an interview with WTOL 11.
Stahl says prosecutors wanted to place Thompson at the scene of the murders.
Investigators say they found a foot print at the scene of the crime - someone wearing a specific type of Nike shoes.
Prosecutors argued that foot print belonged to Thompson because a witness had said that Thompson owned that pair of Nikes.
Investigators, however, never recovered a pair of that brand of shoe from Thompson for a comparison.
In those boxes filled with evidence, that were never given to Thompson's lawyers, was a photo of the foot print along with a ruler showing the size of the foot print. Thompson's attorneys says the image would have shown that the shoe print was too big to be Thompson's.
The appeals court says the Lucas County Prosecutors withheld that key piece of evidence from Thompson's legal team.
In another example, Stahl says one of the prosecution's star witnesses said under oath that Thompson had a gun with him on the night of the murders.
But in a recorded conversation with police - that same witness said something that sounded completely different:
"I pretty much knew he had been asking around trying to buy a gun. At that point when I left that night, he didn't have a gun. He had a fake ass bb gun sitting on the dresser."
That recorded conversation with police - was part of the evidence withheld by the Lucas County Prosecutors according to the appeals court.
Stahl says the case represents a miscarriage of justice that can’t be ignored.
"A lot of people put a huge amount of faith in the jury system and so forth and I think they got shaken a little bit by the DNA exonerations. But Ohio has 50-thousand people in prison. And if even one percent of those are wrongfully convicted that's still a ton of people," said Stahl.
As for Thompson’s family, they are still processing the conviction but are hopeful for the future.
“The last 15 years have been dark, long, and lonely. Our family has suffered tremendously, My brother is still suffering,” said Thompson’s sister Sadie. “I thank God for this day. Unfortunately, my mother isn't here to see it because she passed on the trial - so that's another tragedy for us. I'm hoping today that things change for my brother."
The attorneys for Thompson say this ruling does not overturn his conviction or mean his release is imminent. The ruling simply says Thompson should be given another trial.
WTOL 11 reached out to the Lucas County Prosecutor's office for comment but have not heard back.
MORE FROM WTOL 11: