From the Post-Standard:
Steven Barnes stood, free of handcuffs and out of state custody for the first time in nearly 20 years, and embraced his mother and sister. A man's voiced boomed from the back of the courtroom: "Barnes you're home where you belong, buddy!"
Barnes had spent nearly two decades in prison for a murder he didn't commit. It took a judge just six minutes Tuesday to set him free. "Mr. Barnes, I rule that you be released immediately," Oneida County Court Judge Michael Dwyer told Barnes, who had been in state prison since 1989 for the murder of a 16-year-old girl. Friends and family who had jammed the courtroom in Utica erupted into applause. Barnes was convicted of rape and second-degree murder in the strangling death of a Whitesboro High School student. Tests concluded last week showed that Barnes' DNA matched none of four samples found on Kimberly Simon's body and clothing. Barnes' lawyers from the Innocence Project, in New York City, and Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara jointly asked for Barnes' release.
At a news conference shortly after the court hearing, Barnes answered questions for about 20 minutes in a soft voice with short sentences."I never gave up hope," said Barnes, his sandy brown hair flecked with gray at the temples. "I waited 20 years for this. It's the happiest day of my life." Barnes said he doesn't know what the Internet is or how to use a cell phone. His mother, Sylvia Barnes Bouchard, said her son didn't believe her when she told him how caller ID works. Barnes' years behind bars did not steal his sense of humor. After noting he had spent most of his 20s and all of his 30s in prison, Barnes said: "Life begins at 40, they say." Family and friends who came to Utica Tuesday morning said they always knew he was innocent. "In my heart, I knew this would happen," said his sister, Michelle Weiler, of Rochester. Many of the people in the courtroom Tuesday had testified on Barnes' behalf at the trial 19 years ago. Steve Lewandrowski said on the stand in 1989 that the night of the murder Barnes had been drinking with him in the Marcy bowling alley that Lewandrowski owned. "They were just looking for a conviction," Lewandrowski said. "Steve was in the wrong place at the wrong time." McNamara said he didn't believe prosecutors engaged in misconduct. If current DNA technology had existed in 1985, he said, Barnes would never have been arrested. The Innocence Project asked for DNA tests when it got involved in Barnes' case in 1996, but the samples had deteriorated too much for the results to be conclusive. Earlier this year, at the urging of Barnes' brother, Shawn, project lawyers asked for new tests using techniques developed in the past few years.
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