Three middle-aged men, Thomas Malik, Vincent Ellerbe and James Irons, walked out of a Brooklyn courtroom on July 15 as free men for the first time in almost three decades. Arrested as teenagers in 1995, they had spent a total of 79 years in prison for a murder that they did not commit. After a thorough and exhaustive re-investigation of the case, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office concluded that it had no confidence in the verdicts, and dismissed the indictment.