after Oliver filed a 95-page order explaining his decision to overturn Lewis’s conviction on a charge of arson resulting in death. The judge said he assumed the role of a "13th juror" in weighing the testimony of witnesses, who included several inmate informants and an alleged eye-witness.

Oliver declined to say Lewis was innocent of the crime, but he found the testimony to be unreliable. He noted that all of the jailhouse informants had connections to an inmate who had previously received benefits from federal agents. Also, all of their stories were "uncannily similar" and could not be corroborated.

The eye-witness, Marion Jackson, was an accomplice of Lewis, and the prosecution’s key witness. But Jackson, then 55, had a long criminal history, had spent half his life in state hospitals and prisons, and suffered from mental illness. Oliver found his testimony inconsistent and unreliable.

To allow the jury’s verdict to stand would be a "miscarriage of justice," Oliver ruled.

The appeals court judges said Oliver was better suited than they were to determine if the faulty testimony justified a new trial.'