Man convicted in '92 murder freed by DNA evidence

A man sentenced to death in Mississippi for the rape-murder of a 3-year-old girl has been exonerated in the first case in the state where post-conviction DNA tests proved an inmate's innocence.

A second man was granted a new trial and released on his own recognizance after his conviction for the murder of another 3-year-old girl was undermined by another man's alleged confession.

The developments Friday in the closely connected cases took place in the courthouse in Macon, Miss., where the judge vacated the murder conviction of Kennedy Brewer, who spent some 7 years on Death Row, and granted a new trial to Levon Brooks, who was sentenced to life in prison.

"It has taken 15 long years, but Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks are finally free," Peter Neufeld, co-director of the New York-based Innocence Project, which has worked on the cases for years, said in a statement. "The evidence clearly shows that they are innocent.

"What's troubling," Neufeld, "is that their innocence has been clear for years, but that they remained incarcerated while the true perpetrator was at large."

Chicago Tribune