31 years after Richmond robbery-murder conviction, man to be freed from prison after two key witnesses change their testimony

RICHMOND – A Bay Area man convicted of a 1992 robbery-murder will be released from prison under a new plea agreement reached after two key witnesses changed or recanted their testimony.

Last week, Contra Costa Judge Julia Campins resentenced Ricky Godrey to 24 years in prison, after he pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and attempted robbery.

Godrey has already served 31 years in prison for murder in the same case, so he will be released from California State Prison, Solano under certain terms.

He must serve two years parole, pay restitution to and stay away from the victim’s family, and is prohibited for life from possessing firearms. If he violates his parole, Godfrey will go back to prison.

Godfrey was 18 when he was arrested and charged with fatally shooting Harvey Norfleet in Richmond, and was later sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Jurors convicted Godfrey in a 1993 trial where two eyewitness accounts were at the center of the government’s case.

But decades later, the evidence began to crumble. One of the witnesses, Geral Cannon, submitted a sworn statement saying he was pressured by the real killer — another man present for Norfleet’s shooting — to blame the crime on Godfrey. Cannon also said Richmond detectives pressured him to identify Godfrey as the killer while showing him a police photo lineup.

“I first told (detectives) that I had not seen anything and I did not know who did it,” Cannon’s statement says. “They threatened me, saying that I had been identified by a witness as someone who was there and they said that I could be charged as an accessory to murder and spend my life in prison.”

Canon’s new testimony and that of another witness led the Contra Costa District Attorney’s conviction integrity unit to review the case. Among the considerations given during the review were that not a single Black person was on the jury, a district attorney spokesperson said.

At the re-sentencing hearing, the DA’s office said Norfleet’s son told the court he could recall Godrey’s “smug face” in the courtroom 31 years ago and does not believe the witness who recanted his testimony, calling him a “bum” whose “pockets were laced with a few dollars” to go back on his testimony.

“There is no parole from your father being murdered,” said 57-year-old Dwayne Norfleet, who joined the hearing remotely via Zoom. “There is no parole for the family.” He added, “31 years are not enough” and that his mother “serves the sentence every day.”

David DeBolt contributed to this report.