A Texas man previously freed after spending 15 years in prison for the 2001 killing of a teenager has been formally exonerated.
The Dallas County district attorney's office says the state's top criminal court issued a ruling of "actual innocence" Monday in the case of Quintin Lee Alonzo.
The 39-year-old Alonzo, who was in prison on a life sentence, was released in May 2018. He was convicted of murder in 2003 in the death of 18-year-old Santos Gauna, who was killed when a fight broke out at a Dallas party Alonzo attended.
Another man confessed to Gauna's killing in 2015 before he was executed for a different crime.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' ruling allows Alonzo to seek state compensation for being falsely imprisoned.
The district attorney's office says Alonzo's is their 41st exoneration since 2001.
