A woman who spent 17 years in prison after being convicted of murdering a homeless man has been cleared.
Mother-of-three Susan Mellen and her children wept as a Los Angeles County judge said she was free to go. The courtroom burst into applause.
Judge Mark Arnold said: 'I believe that not only is Ms Mellen not guilty, based on what I have read, I believe she is innocent.
'For that reason I believe in this case the justice system failed.'
The judge said she had received inadequate legal representation.
Ms Mellen was found guilty of the July 1997 death of Richard James Daly, a 30-year-old homeless man.
His body was found with multiple hammer blows to the skull in an alley in the Los Angeles neighbourhood of San Pedro.
The prosecution's main witness was a woman with a long history of giving false tips to police.
June Patti said Ms Mellen, an acquaintance and fellow drug user, had killed Mr Daly with the help of a gang member after accusing the victim of theft.
The witness seemed plausible as she described details of the killing to police that had not been made public.
The jury never learned that Patti, who died in 2006, had been deemed an 'unreliable informant' by a detective.
Patti's own sister, a police officer, had reportedly described her as 'the biggest liar I've ever met in my life'.
As Ms Mellen was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole in May 1998, she maintained her innocence.
'I don't understand why I'm being put in the fire,' she said, 'why this woman lied and told the things that she said that are so evil.'
Three gang members were later linked to the killing and one was convicted.
Another said during a lie-detector test that he was present at the killing, and Ms Mellen was not.
Ms Mellen's case was championed by Deidre O'Connor, head of a project known as Innocence Matters.
'She never gave up,' Ms O'Connor told the Daily Breeze.
'She didn't want to be miserable and depressed, so she kind of turned to her faith. She is very religious.'
Posted by Unknown on Friday, October 10, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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