Bullet tests clear man in prison for 25 years

DETROIT— A Michigan man in prison for 25 years was released Friday after new tests on bullets still in police storage supported his extraordinary claim that he was convicted with bogus evidence.

Desmond Ricks, 51, met his legal team and walked out of prison in western Michigan, the climax of a remarkable effort to clear himself in the slaying outside a Detroit burger joint in 1992.

The Innocence Clinic at University of Michigan law school asked Judge Richard Skutt to reopen the case after prosecutors in 2015 turned over photos of two bullets removed from Gerry Bennett. The bullets were in poor shape and didn’t resemble the pristine bullets that were presented as evidence by Detroit police in 1992.

Police at that time said a gun belonging to Ricks’s mother was the murder weapon, but new tests now have ruled out any connection, Innocence Clinic director David Moran said. One of the bullets doesn’t match the gun and the other bullet was too mutilated for a thorough analysis, he said.

“Ricks was a great advocate for his own cause,” Moran said. “What he was saying seemed to be outlandish: The Detroit police crime lab would not only make mistakes, but switch bullets. It wasn’t outlandish — it was true. This outlandish conduct cost Desmond Ricks 25 years.”

The crime lab was shut down after a 2008 audit revealed sloppy work, including the botched analysis of gun evidence.

Skutt threw out Ricks’s second-degree murder conviction Friday after the Wayne County prosecutor’s office agreed it should be erased. It’s possible he could face a second trial, but it seems unlikely. Spokesperson Maria Miller said the next move will be discussed in court on June 1.