A Massachusetts judge has ruled that a man who has spent 21 years behind bars should be released from prison until he faces a new murder trial.
Superior Court Judge David Lowy on Monday officially vacated a life sentence imposed on Angel Echavarria for the 1994 shooting death of Daniel Rodriguez in Lynn.
Forty-eight-year-old Echavarria must wear a monitoring device and remain in Massachusetts until the new trial.
The new trial was prompted by a decadelong investigation by the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University.
The eyewitness in the case had described the shooter as a 20-year-old, clean-shaven Puerto Rican man with a "stocky" or "chunky" build. Echavarria is from the Dominican Republic and is 5-foot-10. In 1994, he weighed 135 pounds and had a full mustache.
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