LaVone Hill was 24 years old when he was arrested for the 2001 shooting deaths of Dushawn Luchie Sr. and Ronnie Craft during a dice game in Detroit. The prosecution’s case depended heavily on a statement from Andre Meridith, who was arrested on an unrelated drug charge two days after the shooting. Meridith initially implicated Hill, but at trial he testified that Detroit Police Sergeant Walter Bates had threatened him with imprisonment, supplied the information, and pressured him to sign the statement. Meridith told the jury that he had not witnessed the shooting and did not know who was responsible. Hill presented an alibi through his partner, who testified that they were asleep in their apartment with their daughter when the shooting occurred. Hill’s mother also testified that she called him at home after hearing about the shooting. Despite the recantation and alibi testimony, Hill was convicted in 2002 of two counts of first-degree murder and two firearm offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. A later reinvestigation uncovered witnesses who identified another man, Deandre Murray, as the shooter and said Hill was not present. A forensic expert also determined that the shell casings recovered from the scene came from a rifle, contradicting the original statement that Hill had fired a handgun. The investigation further revealed that Sergeant Bates had been suspended when he testified at Hill’s trial and was involved in a series of bank robberies. One of those robberies occurred on the same day Bates testified against Hill, but this information was never disclosed to the defense. In October 2024, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit and the University of Michigan Law School’s Innocence Clinic jointly requested that Hill’s convictions be vacated and the case dismissed. Prosecutors concluded that the jury likely would not have convicted Hill if it had known the undisclosed information about Bates. Hill was released after spending more than 22 years wrongfully incarcerated.