Detroit man in prison since 1992 "Bullet tests clear"

DETROIT — A judge on Friday threw out the murder conviction of a Detroit man who has been in prison for 25 years after new tests on bullets supported his claim that police framed him with bogus evidence.
Desmond Ricks, now 51, will be released from a prison in western Michigan.
The Innocence Clinic at University of Michigan law school asked Judge Richard Skutt to reopen the case after prosecutors 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' 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.
The law school has exonerated 10 people and freed four others since 2009 by exposing bad police work in Michigan, finding new witnesses and tapping specialists.
In 1992, Ricks was with Bennett when Bennett was shot in the head outside a burger joint. Ricks said he ran away, dodging gunfire. But a few days later, police pinned the slaying on him and seized his mother's gun.
"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had nothing to do with this," Ricks told The Associated Press earlier this year. "They switched the bullets on me."