Nearly four decades after a 1985 killing and years after DNA cleared him, Placerville resident Ricky Davis has secured a $3.25 million settlement from El Dorado County. Davis, who spent about 15 years in prison for the killing of his housemate before a judge tossed his conviction in 2020, will be paid out through the county’s general liability fund. County officials moved the payment forward in mid‑2025, effectively closing a long and painful legal chapter for both Davis and the victim’s family.
County records show how the payment was approved
County agenda documents show the Board of Supervisors signed off on the $3.25 million settlement and approved a related budget transfer in June 2025, according to El Dorado County records. The county’s excess insurer, PRISM, agreed to reimburse $2.25 million above the county’s $1 million self‑insured retention, which trims the ultimate cost to local coffers. The agenda report also spells out that the written settlement agreement is not an admission of liability by the county.
How the money is split
Court documents reviewed by reporters show most of the money will not land directly in Davis’s bank account. His legal team is slated to receive roughly $2.6 million, while Davis will collect periodic payments totaling about $647,785, according to The Sacramento Bee. Those numbers come from filings in the federal civil rights lawsuit Davis filed in 2022. The settlement resolves his civil claims against the county, while restating in legalese that the deal does not amount to the county admitting fault.
DNA exoneration and the new suspect
Post‑conviction DNA testing combined with genetic genealogy work produced a male DNA profile from the victim’s nightgown that did not match Davis. Investigators eventually tied that profile to a different man, prompting prosecutors to ask a judge in 2019 to vacate Davis’s conviction and, in 2020, to declare him factually innocent. The Northern California Innocence Project played a key role in securing the testing that cleared Davis, according to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle. Investigators later charged Michael Eric Green, who pleaded no contest in 2022 and received a sentence of 15 to life. He is serving his term at San Quentin, with parole eligibility beginning in early 2029.
County response and legal fallout
In the wake of the exoneration, El Dorado County prosecutors publicly acknowledged problems with older interrogation tactics used in the case, and a county official apologized in court to both Davis and the victim’s family, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. At the same time, county materials stress that the settlement “does not constitute an admission of fault” and note that Davis has waived additional claims as part of the agreement, per El Dorado County records. Officials frame the payout as one of several recent liability settlements navigated while trying to balance general fund risk against excess insurance coverage.
What comes next
Under the settlement, Davis will receive his share through scheduled installments while his attorneys collect their agreed fees, according to The Sacramento Bee. Beyond the headline‑grabbing dollar figure, the case highlights how advances in DNA testing and genetic genealogy are reshaping cold case investigations and pushing local agencies to revisit interrogation methods and post‑conviction review practices that once seemed settled.
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