DNA Clears Texan Jailed for 30 Years

A Texas man who spent 30 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit was cleared by a DNA test, and a Dallas County court is expected to exonerate him today. Cornelius Dupree Jr., 51, was 20 years old when he was jailed in connection with a 1979 rape and robbery. Test results proving his innocence arrived back a week after he was paroled in July last year, AP reports.

Dupree could have been paroled sooner if he had admitted guilt, according to a lawyer for the Innocence Project, the New York-based legal center that took up Dupree's case in 2007. If the conviction is overturned as expected, Dupree will be the longest-serving inmate in Texas to have been exonerated through DNA tests, and the third-longest nationwide. (More Innocence Project stories.)