Case dropped against US man after 45 years in jail for murder
Detroit — A Michigan man whose murder conviction was thrown out after he spent 45 years in prison will not face a second trial.
Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Wednesday that she's dropping the case against Richard Phillips. She says he was the victim of false testimony by a key witness at his 1972 trial.
Worthy says what happened to Phillips "was not justice at all."
Phillips' murder conviction was thrown out last summer and he's been free since December.
He has long maintained that he had nothing to do with the 1971 fatal shooting of Gregory Harris. In 2014, the Innocence Clinic at University of Michigan law school learned that a co-defendant said Phillips played absolutely no role in the killing.
The disclosure by Richard Palombo occurred at a 2010 parole hearing.
Associated Press