A MAN who spent nearly 30 years on death row in Alabama, US, walked free on Friday after prosecutors acknowledged they could not prove any crime.

Ray Hinton was 29 when he was arrested in 1985 for three murders despite having been at work inside a locked warehouse 15 minutes away during the third shooting.

Now 58, he won a new trial last year after the Supreme Court ruled that his defence arrangements had been inadequate.

Equal Justice Initiative director Bryan Stevenson called it “a case study” in what was wrong with the US judicial system.

He said that the trial was tainted by racial bias and that the impoverished African-American had no access to an adequate defence.

Independent experts “were unequivocal that his gun was not connected to these crimes,” he said.

“What happened this week to get Mr Hinton released could have happened at least 15 years ago.”