64-year-old Glen Ford was found guilty of murdering 56-year-old jeweller Isadore Rozeman in 1988.
According to US media reports, Ford is one of the longest serving death row inmates to be exonerated.
Ford has been imprisoned in a maximum security prison in Angola, Lousiana.
He walked out he doors a free man after his case was proven to have many serious flaws.
Ford’s lawyers said the case was ‘compromised by inexperienced counsel and by the unconstitutional suppression of evidence, including information from an informant.’
No murder weapon was ever found and there was found to be no witnesses after a women who testified admitted that she had lied.
Walking out the prison gates, Ford said: ‘It feels good, my mind is going in all kind of directions. It feels good.’
‘I’ve been locked up almost 30 years for something I didn’t do.’
Ford lost 25 years of his life living under a death sentence. ‘Thirty years, 30 years of my life if not all of it. I can't go back and do anything that I should've been doing when I was 35, 38 and 40 - stuff like that,’ he said.
‘My son when I left was a baby, now they're grown men with babies.’ Ford’s lawyers said in a statement: ‘We are particularly grateful that the prosecution and the court moved ahead so decisively to set Mr Ford free.’
There are currently 83 men and 2 women on death row in Louisiana.