Excerpted from "Mean Justice" by Edward Humes, Pocket Star Books, 1999.

Gary Nelson is freed after eleven years on death row for the 1978 rape and murder of a six-year-old in Chatham County, Georgia, after it is revealed that his conviction was based on offical lies, knowing use of false testimony, the suppression of evidence supporting his claims of innocence, and the hiding of information implicating another man in the crime. There had been no eyewitnesses or fingerprints linking Nelson to the crime, and a search of his home turned up nothing. To combat these shortcomings, the prosecution manufactured phony scientific evidence linking Nelson to a hair found on the victim's body. The director of the Savannah crime lab said the hair came from Nelson when, in fact, his lab never examined it. Additionally, a police detective swore falsely that Nelson's brother had linked the suspect to the murder weapon. The jury based its conviction largely on this information. Years later, the defense discovered an FBI report finding no link between Nelson and the hair, along with a tape recording of the brother being interviewed by police in which he consistently denied knowing anything about the murder weapon. It was also shown that police covered up an alibi that could have exonerated Nelson. Despite all this, Nelson lost his first two appeals - the misconduct was deemed "harmless error." The Georgia Supreme Court finally granted him a new trial, and a newly elected Chatham County District Attorney refused to prosecute Nelson a second time, saying, "There is no material element of the state's case in the original trial which has not subsequently been determined to be impeached or contradicted."