OKLAHOMA - Two men were found innocent Monday in a fatal 1994 drive-by shooting case.
Malcolm Scott and MeMarchoe Carpenter were found innocent Monday after a 1994 shooting that left Karren Summers, 19, dead.
Judge rules Scott and Carpenter are innocent. Judge Holmes approves post conviction relief. @KJRH2HD pic.twitter.com/SwVRk1pgha
— Joe Henke (@JoeHenke) May 9, 2016
The Oklahoma Innocence Project argued that neither Scott or Carpenter pulled the trigger in the fatal shooting.
Previously, a Tulsa County jury found the two men guilty of killing 19-year-old mother Karen Summers during a drive-by shooting.
Michael Wilson was also questioned for the murder and charged. In exchange for his testimony though, Wilson pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of accessory to murder after the fact.
Wilson then found himself back in a court room and charged with the 1995 murder of Richard Yost. Wilson was found guilty, but before being executed in 2014 he said Carpenter and Scott were innocent in Summers' murder trial.
In January, defense lawyers for Carpenter and Scott showed a jailhouse interview with Wilson where he said he shot and killed Summers. Wilson said he was with two other men, including Richard Harjo.
Harjo is serving a life sentence related to the murder of Yost. In January, he also testified to seeing Wilson murder Summers, not Carpenter and Scott.
The state argued that Wilson's statements weren't under oath and could not be cross-examined, but Judge Sharon Holmes allowed the video interview to be submitted as evidence.
On Monday, more than three months after she received the new evidence, Tulsa County Judge Sharon Holmes found Carpenter and Scott innocent. She said in court if the evidence presented to her in 2016 was given to the jury in 1995, Carpenter and Scott would have been found not guilty.
An attorney for the state of Oklahoma on Monday said in court they plan to appeal the judge's ruling.
Carpenter and Scott were released from the Tulsa County Jail Monday evening and were reunited with their families.
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