LITTLE ROCK -- An Arkansas man who has been imprisoned since 1992 for robbery and murder convictions has been released after a judge overturned his conviction last month.
A judge ordered John Brown's release Wednesday after he served 26 years for the 1988 killing and robbery of an elderly woman in Fordyce. The Midwest Innocence Project, which appealed on Brown's behalf, says Brown's lawyer at the time was "ineffective and corrupt," and argued the state withheld potentially exculpatory evidence.
In 2015, Brown's co-defendant confessed to committing the crimes alone.
In August, U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson vacated Brown's convictions and said the state had 30 days to either release or retry Brown.
The attorney general's office is appealing the decision, and Brown could still be retried pending the outcome of the appeal.
NW News on 09/20/2018