Kia Stewart, 27, speaks to the press on Monday, after walking out of the Orleans Parish Criminal Courthouse a free man after he spent nearly 10 years of a life sentence behind bars. Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Darryl Derbigny threw out the conviction following requests from Stewart's attorneys and Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office, who together investigated the conviction as part of a newly formed, collaborative effort coined the Joint Conviction Integrity and Accuracy Project. He had been convicted on murder charges in a pre-Hurricane Katrina killing in the Lafitte housing projects had his conviction vacated and murder charges dropped on Monday.
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