​​Man freed from prison after 31 years; witness says police, killer pushed him to lie

A California man convicted of a 1992 robbery-murder was released with restrictions after two crucial witnesses — including one who claimed that he was forced to lie — modified or recanted their testimony.

According to the East Bay Times, Contra Costa Judge Julia Campins resentenced Ricky Godfrey to 24 years in California State Prison, Solano, after he entered a no-contest plea to voluntary homicide and attempted robbery of Harvey Norfleet. He had already served 31 years for murder in the same case, leading to his conditional release.

Godfrey is required to stay away from and pay restitution to the Norfleet family. Additionally, he can never possess a firearm again and he will be on parole for two years. If he violates his parole, he will return to prison.

“There is no parole from your father being murdered. There is no parole for the family,” said the victim’s son, Dwayne Norfleet, the Times reported. “Thirty-one years are not enough,” he said, considering the fact that his mother has to live without her partner for the rest of her life.

A guard tower at the California State Prison, Solano, where Ricky Godfrey spent 31 years in connection with a 1992 murder and robbery before recently winning a conditional release. (Photo: Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images) image.png

Godfrey was 18 when he was charged with killing Harvey Norfleet in Richmond. The jury found him guilty in a 1993 trial during which the government’s case revolved around two eyewitness accounts. He received a life sentence with no chance of parole. 

Decades later in a sworn statement, one of the witnesses — Geral Cannon — claimed that he was pressured by both the actual killer and detectives who presented him with a photo lineup to name Godfrey as the killer.

“I first told [detectives] that I had not seen anything, and I did not know who did it,” read Cannon’s statement, the Times reported. He alleged that they threatened him by saying a witness identified him “as someone who was there, and they said that I could be charged as an accessory to murder and spend my life in prison.”

The district attorney’s office reported that at the resentencing hearing, Dwayne Norfleet told the judge that he recalled Godfrey’s “smug face” in court more than three decades ago. He called the witness who recanted his testimony a “bum” whose “pockets were laced with a few dollars” for his amended statement, which he doesn’t believe to be true.

The Conviction Integrity Unit of the Contra Costa district attorney’s office reviewed the case because of Cannon’s new testimony and that of the other witness. According to a spokesperson in the DA’s office, one factor considered during the review was that no Black person served on the jury.

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