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Court Orders Release of Man Who Spent 30 Years in Prison After Conviction Tossed

The Connecticut Supreme Court threw out the convictions of Ralph Birch and Shawn Henning following the discovery of botched evidence in their case.

A judge has ordered the release of Ralph Birch following a state Supreme Court ruling last month that threw out his murder conviction. Birch was convicted along with Shawn Henning, who has been out free on probation, in the 1985 murder of Everett Carr. The high court tossed the rulings out last month upon discovering forensic science expert Henry Lee had given inaccurate testimony about the case. Lee, who has been accused of botching evidence in multiple cases, inaccurately told jurors that he had tested blood on a towel in Carr’s home, the Hartford Courant reports. After The Innocence Project took on the case in 2006, new evidence revealed the towel had never been tested before and that the spot was not in fact blood. The recent Supreme Court decision ordered new trials for the two men, but the attorney who previously prosecuted the men, David Shepack, did not indicate whether he would seek convictions again.