From [HERE] A D.C. Superior Court judge has overturned the conviction of a District man who wrongly served 28 years in prison for the killing of a taxi driver.

Santae A. Tribble, now 51, had maintained his innocence since the crime in 1978. In a telephone interview Tuesday morning, Tribble said, “I’m overjoyed. I always felt like it would happen, but it took so long I started to wonder.”

Although the judge’s ruling threw out Tribble’s 1980 conviction and said he never could be tried on the charge again, it does not exonerate him. Tribble’s D.C. Public Defender Service lawyer requested time to file papers and, if necessary, have a separate hearing next month to determine innocence. DNA evidence and information from police files that was never disclosed at trial clear Tribble, his attorneys said.

“Mr. Tribble’s struggle for justice is not yet over. He will now seek a certificate of innocence from the court,” said Sandra K. Levick, chief of special litigation for the D.C. Public Defender Service.

In a one-page court order signed Friday, filed Monday and received by Tribble’s attorneys late Tuesday, Judge Laura Cordero did not opine on Tribble’s case in vacating his conviction and dismissing the underlying charges.

U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. on April 27 cited DNA evidence in agreeing to drop the murder charge against Tribble and never try him again.

Tribble was found guilty of murdering a District taxi driver in an early morning robbery on July 26, 1978. The Washington Post featured Tribble’s case in a series of articles in April that reported that Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of hundreds of potentially innocent people.

In addition, the Justice Department reviewed only a limited number of cases and focused on the work of one scientist at the FBI lab, despite warnings that problems were far more widespread and could affect potentially thousands of cases in federal, state and local courts.

As a result, hundreds of defendants nationwide remain in prison or on parole for crimes that might merit exoneration, a retrial or a retesting of evidence using DNA because FBI hair and fiber experts may have misidentified them as suspects.

In Tribble’s case, prosecutors and the FBI laboratory were incorrect in linking a hair found near the murder scene to Tribble, according to recent DNA test results and The Post’s inquiry.

Machen’s office declined to comment, referring to the April 27 filing. In that filing, prosecutors said the DNA results raise substantial doubt about the defendant’s guilt. However, they stopped short of joining his bid for innocence.

Tribble has asked the court for full exoneration under the D.C. Innocence Protection Act.