Louis Taylor was 16-years-old in 1970, when 28 people died in a fire in a historic hotel in Tucson, Arizona. The then-teenager was not a guest at the hotel, but he was found inside with a book of matches in his pocket. He has served almost 43 years of what was supposed to be a life sentence, but after entering a plea of “no contest” earlier this week he will finally be released from prison. Taylor has always maintained his innocence, and forensic experts have stepped forward to say that there is a very real possibility that the fire was not caused by arson at all. They have pointed out that the experts in the original trial “used methods no longer valid in the science of today.” Even the judge in the original case was skeptical about the conviction, telling 60 Minutes in a recent interview that “the evidence was not strong enough to convict.”
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