Twice-Convicted Murderer Released

From The New York Times:

OKLAHOMA CITY, May 21 — “It’s like landing on a new planet,” said Curtis E. McCarty, who was freed from death row this month after two convictions for the same murder, and 22 years in prison, 16 of them on death row.

Mr. McCarty, 44, had been scheduled to stand trial yet again on Monday for the killing in 1982 of a police officer’s daughter but was released based on a presumption of innocence after DNA evidence from earlier trials was destroyed.

“This is a real bad situation for everybody involved — for my family, for the victim’s family, for myself, for the local court system, for the people of this community,” Mr. McCarty said in a telephone interview after declining to show up Friday at a news conference at the Capitol featuring his parents and justice advocates calling for a commission to examine wrongful convictions.