Richard Philips is expected to be released from Wayne County Jail after he was granted a $5,000 bond.
Phillips was convicted, along with co-defendant Richard Palombo, of conspiracy to commit murder and the first-degree premeditated murder of Gregory Harris in 1971, on the basis of testimony of the victim’s brother-in-law, Fred Mitchell.
On Oct. 25, 1972, Phillips was sentenced to concurrent terms of life in prison without parole for these convictions.
During a parole board hearing in 2010, the co-defendant admitted that he and Mitchell killed Harris, and that he didn’t even know Phillips at the time of the murder.
Phillips’ conviction was thrown out in August of this year and he was granted a new trial. Phillips, now 71, had been incarcerated for 45 years.
The Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School began working on Phillips’ case in 2014. A retrial is scheduled for February 2018.
