Judge Frees 2 North Carolina Men Imprisoned for 30 Years

DNA evidence exonerates two half-brothers convicted of the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl

Two half-brothers who were convicted in the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old North Carolina girl were ordered free Monday, after a judge ruled that they had been wrongly imprisoned thanks to newly discovered DNA evidence.

North Carolina Superior Court Judge Douglas Sasser overturned the convictions of Henry Lee McCollum, who had been on death row, and Leon Brown, who had been serving a life sentence. Both men originally confessed to the rape and murder of Sabrina Buie.

The ruling comes after an investigation by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission that found no DNA evidence at the crime scene that could be traced back to McCollum or Brown.

A cigarette found and tested in 2010 contained the DNA of another man, Roscoe Artis, who lived a block away from where the crime took place and is serving a life sentence for another murder and rape within weeks of Buie's death.

The two men, both teenagers at the time, were originally both sentenced to death. Brown's sentence was eventually reduced to life in prison. Both have appealed their convictions over the years.

'It's impossible to put into words what these men have been through and how much they have lost,' said Ken Rose, a lawyer who represents McCollum, in a statement.