Summary Dismissal came after key witness against Jackson and brothers Wiley and Ronnie Bridgeman recanted
CLEVELAND (AP) - A man convicted in a 1975 Cleveland slaying walked out of the county jail as a free man, after spending nearly 40 years in prison.
Fifty-seven-year-old Ricky Jackson walked out of an Ohio courthouse Friday about an hour after a judge dismissed his case. The dismissal came after the key witness against Jackson and brothers Wiley and Ronnie Bridgeman recanted last year.
Eddie Vernon, who was 13 at the time of the killing, said police detectives coerced him into testifying that the three killed businessman Harry Franks the afternoon of May 19, 1975.
"Finally, finally," Jackson said Friday morning as he took his first steps as a free man. Wiley Bridgeman, 60, was also scheduled to appear in court Friday. Ronnie Bridgeman, 57, who is now known as Kwame Ajamu, was released from prison in January 2003.
The Bridgemans death sentences were commuted to life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed capital punishment in 1978. Jackson s sentence was commuted in 1977 on a technicality a mistake in jury instructions.
The three-year process that led to their exonerations began with a story published in Scene Magazine in 2011 that detailed flaws in the case, including Vernon s questionable testimony. Vernon, now 52, did not recant until a minister visited him at a hospital in 2013. Vernon broke down during a court hearing for Jackson on Tuesday as he described the threats by detectives and the burden of guilt he had carried for so long.
The Ohio Innocence Project took up Jackson s cause after the Scene article even though there was no DNA evidence, the hallmark of Innocence Project cases. A Cleveland attorney represented Bridgeman and Ajamu.
