DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit man who spent 16 years behind bars after being wrongfully convicted of fatally shooting a teenager is now a free man after a judge vacated his convictions.
Dennis Atkins, 38, walked out of a state prison Friday in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula after a Wayne County judge vacated his convictions in the 2005 murder of 17-year-old Billie Rutledge, WXYZ-TV reported.
In January 2006, Atkins was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for Rutledge's 2005 murder. The teen was on a stretcher and being treated by two EMS workers for gunshot wounds when an armed man walked up and shot Rutledge again, killing him.
Atkins had maintained his innocence in Rutledge's death and had turned to the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit for help. The office re-investigated the case and pushed for Atkin's release.
Valerie Newman, director of Wayne County’s CIU, asked the judge on Friday to vacate the convictions and the case against Atkins.
“Mr. Atkins was not involved, in any way, shape, or form, in the murder of Billie Rutledge,” Newman said in court.
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