Dupree, 51, served 30 years for the 1979 Dallas crime before being paroled last July. Days later, DNA testing in the case — performed at the behest of the New York-based Innocence Project – showed he was not the rapist.
Minutes after a Dallas judge vacated the conviction Tuesday morning, Dupree called the experience “bittersweet.”
“I want to enjoy the moment,” he said, “but I have mixed emotion with things in the past. No one heard my cry for justice. I had to wait 30 years.”
While incarcerated, Dupree made three unsuccessful appeals to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He spent more time in prison than any other Texas inmate cleared through new DNA testing.
Under Texas law, Dupree is eligible for $80,000 for each year he was wrongly imprisoned, plus a lifetime annuity. Read the full story here.