California man who spent 34 years in prison freed after conviction overturned

Sixty-nine-year-old Michael Hanline, who was convicted of murder in 1980, was freed on Monday after Ventura County, California, prosecutors told a judge they were no longer sure he was guilty of killing Ventura resident J.T. McGarry. The development came after the California Innocence Project reexamined the evidence in the case. Testing showed that DNA found at the crime scene did not match Hanline or his alleged accomplice. Prosecutors will decide by February whether they want a new trial. Read more at AP.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.