Texan freed by DNA test after 25 years exonerated

Story here. Excerpt:

'AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas appeals court on Wednesday formally exonerated a man who spent nearly 25 years in prison for his wife's 1986 fatal beating, reaffirming a judge's decision to set him free last week after DNA tests linked the killing to another man.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared Michael Morton innocent of killing his wife, Christine, and made him eligible to receive $80,000 from the state for each year of confinement, or about $2 million total.

Morton, 57, was convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence and sentenced to life in prison. He maintained over the years that his wife and their 3-year-old son were fine when he left for work at an Austin grocery store on the day she was killed, and that an intruder must have attacked her.

DNA found this summer during testing on a bloody bandanna recovered near the crime scene matched that of a man who authorities say has a criminal record in several states. When it was also matched to DNA recovered from the scene of a north Austin woman's 1988 unsolved beating death, prosecutors recommended that Morton be freed immediately.'