Wrongly convicted in California murder, former inmate sues over his 15 years in prison

An emotional Ricky Davis emerged from 15 years of prison in February 2020 after authorities in El Dorado County announced the wrong man had been convicted in a 1985 murder and they were declaring him innocent.

Now, two years after a judge found Davis innocent in the July 1985 slaying of Janet Hylton and authorities arrested another man in the killing, Davis is suing law enforcement officials who helped send him to prison, accusing some of fabricating evidence and coercing phony confessions.

“Davis was prosecuted and convicted of Hylton’s murder on August 17, 2005, and on September 19, 2005, was sentenced to 16 years to life in state prison for murdering Hylton,” a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in Sacramento federal court late Wednesday says. “He remained in custody, serving time for a murder he did not commit, until he was released on February 13, 2020, after DNA evidence proved his innocence...

“For 25 years, Davis unwaveringly maintained his innocence through his prosecution, trial, and years of wrongful incarceration. He has been proven innocent today, and through this lawsuit seeks vindication for the damages he suffered as a result of the wrongful investigation, prosecution, and conviction.”

The lawsuit is the latest twist in a series of events that even El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson dubbed “surreal” as he announced two years ago that Davis was being freed and another man, Michael Green, was being arrested 35 years after the brutal stabbing death.

Davis’ exoneration took years of effort by the Northern California Innocence Project, as well as Pierson’s office and Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert’s crime lab, which has become a national leader in analyzing DNA evidence.

Hylton was found dead from 29 stab wounds inside an El Dorado Hills home on July 7, 1985, according to Sacramento Bee archives.

Davis, who was then 20, lived in the house along with Connie Dahl, his 19-year-old girlfriend, Connie Dahl, according to the Innocence Project, which is part of the Santa Clara University School of Law.

At the time, the two told detectives they had been out partying until after 3 a.m. and came home to find Hylton’s daughter outside. The three went inside and found Hylton’s body on a bed in the master bedroom and called 911. All three denied any knowledge of what had happened.

The case went unsolved until it was reopened in 1999, and Dahl was repeatedly interrogated and ultimately changed her story and implicated Davis in the slaying, something officials later said was false.

Dahl received a one-year sentence after telling detectives she had bitten Hylton during the attack, and died in 2014.

The bite evidence turned out to be crucial, with the Sacramento crime lab able to analyze DNA evidence and use it to find a suspect it matched and to exonerate Davis.

The lawsuit names El Dorado County as well as former detective Richard Strasser, Rick Fitzgerald, Bill Wilson (who is deceased and being sued through his estate) and Larry Hennick, as well as Dr. Robert Anthony, a pathologist working for the sheriff’s office.

An El Dorado Sheriff’s Office spokesman did not respond to a request for comment Thursday, but the lawsuit contends detectives failed to interview alibi witnesses, focused on the wrong Michael Green as a suspect and “deliberately failed to consider alternative suspects.”

“Using techniques they knew, and any reasonable police officer would know, would increase the risk of unreliable and false statements, police conducted four interrogations of Dahl over the course of eighteen months, from November 2, 1999, to February 2, 2001,” the lawsuit says. “Dahl first denied any involvement in the crime.

“But over the course of these multiple prolonged and intentionally coercive interrogations designed to inculpate Dahl and Davis regardless of the truth, Dahl eventually claimed that Davis had killed Hylton ...”

Davis attorney David McLane of Pasadena did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday, but there has been little doubt that a lawsuit would be filed seeking compensation for the time Davis spent in custody.

At a news conference in February 2020, after the El Dorado district attorney had met with Davis in prison and subsequently guided Superior Court Judge Kenneth J. Melekian through the process of throwing out the conviction and ordering Davis freed, Pierson noted that he expected the issue would come up.

“I’m confident that he will ultimately be compensated,” Pierson said then.