Prosecutors will not retry a man who spent more than 25 years in prison for a murder in Boston.
Rickey “FuQuan” McGee was released from prison last month in light of new evidence. He will now remain free.
That new evidence could also lead to more convictions being vacated.
McGee — who has always maintained his innocence — was convicted in 1998 for the shooting death of Geta Yalew, a convenience store clerk who was killed during a robbery at Christy’s Market in the Fenway.
The conviction was vacated in late October by Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Michael Ricciuti, shortly after McGee was released.
In an audio message shared with GBH News by his attorneys, McGee said he was “overjoyed.”
“Just coming to the end of my criminal case was so vital and pivotal, not just for me but for my family,” McGee said.
New evidence first uncovered by investigator John Nardizzi and other defense investigators led to the dismissal of McGee’s case.
In 2023, those investigators found evidence that the prosecution’s main witness had been shielded from prosecution for bank fraud in exchange for her testimony. It also indicated possible witness tampering by Boston police officers.
Their findings spurred the prosecutor’s office to pick up its own investigation. The local district attorney’s office, led by Suffolk County’s Kevin Hayden, agreed McGee deserved a new trial and filed a motion last month saying a combination of errors created “a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice” in the original trial.
But on Monday, Hayden’s office took a further step and filed a motion to dismiss the case altogether, saying “newly discovered evidence weakens the reliability” of the state’s main witness and other evidence presented by the prosecution.
According to that filing, the case against McGee had relied entirely on admissions made by the defendant to those two witnesses and there was “no other evidence” tying McGee to the crime scene.
“We’re thrilled that Mr. McGee’s conviction was vacated and that the case was dismissed. So he’s free like he was never charged,”
said Jeffrey Harris, his defense attorney.
This case could also have repercussions for others sitting behind bars. The judge told prosecutors that it was the “obligation” of the state to identify and investigate the Boston homicide detectives who worked on McGee’s case to find out whether they had committed similar acts in other cases.
“If there’s an officer who did what they did here, and did it somewhere else, there are other defendants who have a right to know it,” Ricciuti said, according to a court recording shared by court blogger Andrew Quemere.
McGee’s attorneys told GBH News they were heartened by the judge’s directive for the district attorney’s office and that it could help other people in prison.
“That’s extremely unusual and I think it is going to be a legacy of this case,” Harris said.
Hayden’s office declined to comment.
McGee, 19 years old at the time of his arrest, had originally been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and spent 28 years behind bars.
He said he’s still at work assimilating back into society and working to help other wrongfully convicted — ”but also creating a path forward for myself because that’s what I owe me,“ he said.
