Two half brothers who have spent three decades in a US jail for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl have walked free after new DNA evidence cleared them of the crime.<br /><br />The brothers, 50-year-old Henry McCollum and 46-year-old Leon Brown, were jailed back in 1984.<br /><br />McCollum, who was North Carolina’s longest-serving death row inmate, surprisingly expressed no resentment over his treatment:<br /><br />“It was a rough experience. Sometimes, I felt like giving up and stuff. But I said, ‘No, I can’t do that. Because life moves on.’ I knew one day that I was going to be blessed to get out of prison. I just didn’t know when that time was going to be.”<br /><br />A judge overturned their conviction based on evidence which pointed to another suspect already serving a life sentence for a similar murder which he’d committed less than a month later.<br /><br />Anti-capital punishment pressure groups see the case as one more reason for doing away with the death penalty in the US.<br /><br />“There’s a lot of pressure when it’s a death sentence or when it’s a capital case, to solve the crime and make sure you have the right person. And I think sometimes that creates tunnel vision, and we make mistakes. And I think execution is a pretty high risk in a system that’s imperfect,” said Gerda Stein from the Center for Death Penalty Litigation.<br /><br />Their case has caused great concern on several legal counts. Both brothers are mentally disabled and had confessed at the time under intense questioning without the presence of a lawyer.<br /><br />They will now have to get used to life on the outside which will undoubtedly present them with numerous challenges.
