CLEVELAND -- Nearly 40 years after being convicted for a 1975 Cleveland slaying, Ricky Jackson and Wiley Bridgeman left jail as free men.

A judge dismissed the cases against the two men Friday after the key witness against Jackson, Bridgeman and his brother Ronnie Bridgeman at trial, a 13-year-old boy, recanted last year and said Cleveland police detectives coerced him into testifying that the three killed businessman Harry Franks the afternoon of May 19, 1975.

Prosecutors on Thursday filed the motion to dismiss all charges against the three men, who were sentenced to death at the time of the conviction. Ronnie Bridgeman, 57, who is now known as Kwame Ajamu, was released from prison in January 2003. He attended the hearings of both men Friday.

"The English language doesn't even fit what I'm feeling," Jackson, 57, said as he exited the building Friday. "I'm on an emotional high."

Eddie Vernon, who was 13 at the time of the killing, said police detectives coerced him into testifying that the three killed businessman Harry Franks the afternoon of May 19, 1975.

The Bridgemans' death sentences were commuted to life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed capital punishment in 1978. Jackson's sentence was commuted in 1977 on a technicality -- a mistake in jury instructions.

The three-year process that led to their exonerations began with a story published in Scene Magazine in 2011 that detailed flaws in the case, including Vernon's questionable testimony. Vernon, now 52, did not recant until a minister visited him in 2013. Vernon broke down during a court hearing for Jackson on Tuesday as he described the threats by detectives and the burden of guilt he had carried for so long.

The Ohio Innocence Project took up Jackson's cause after the Scene article even though there was no DNA evidence, the hallmark of Innocence Project cases.