DNA tests have proven Jimmy Ray Bromgard to be innocent of the rape for which he is serving a 40 year sentence. Tuesday he expects to walk out of Montana's Yellowstone County Courthouse a free man. At 33, almost half his life has been spent in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Questions linger, but they are not about Bromgard's innocence.

Bromgard's lawyers, one of whom is Peter Neufeld, co-director along with Barry Scheck of the Cardozo Law School Innocence Project, "have assembled a peer review committee of forensic scientists, which has issued a report asking for an audit of the hundreds of cases in which the manager of the state's crime laboratory at the time testified. The manager, Arnold Melnikoff, played a central role in Mr. Bromgard's case."

The rape victim's father said he always had doubts about the case. The victim, then 8 years old, said she was "not too sure" Bromgard was the man who raped her.

There was no physical evidence except some hairs. Melnikoff testified "that head and pubic hairs found at the scene could not be distinguished from samples provided by Mr. Bromgard. The chances that two hair samples are microscopically indistinguishable, he said, are one in a hundred. Since head and pubic hairs are different, he went on, "it's a multiplying effect, it would be one chance in 10,000."

We know enough about microscopic hair comparision to know that's a crock. Bromgard's lawyers say Melnikof manufactured the statistics and "deliberately ignored the scientifically accepted practices to help secure a conviction."

Now Melnikoff is back-tracking. In an interview he said "there has never been a thorough, proper study where they looked at a large number of samples" that would allow quantification of the kind he used...."I did my job," he said. "I didn't say it was him exclusively. Hair evidence is class evidence. It's not specific. It's possible by coincidence it could be similar to another person."

Microscopic hair comparison does not result in identification. A hair may be similar to another hair, but it cannot be termed a "match." Only mitochondrial DNA testing, which has not been available until recently, can positively identify two hairs as coming from the same person.

Mr. Bromgard had a court-appointed lawyer at trial. "Mr. Adams worked for the county for a monthly fee. According to Mr. Bromgard and his lawyers, Mr. Adams met with him once before trial, hired no investigators or scientific experts, filed no motions to suppress evidence, made no opening statement, failed to prepare Mr. Bromgard for his testimony and, after indicating he would appeal, did not."

"In an interview, Mr. Adams said he did not recall Mr. Bromgard's case and was no longer practicing."

Mr. Bromgard did some very hard time according to prison officials. Inmates don't much like child rapists, and he had his jaw broken a few weeks after his arrival. He was 18 then. He is leaving prison 15 years later with thinning hair but in good spirits. When asked what he planned to do when he got out, he said he'd he like to go swimming.

Update: As expected, Mr. Bromgard was released from jail with an apology from the Judge Tuesday morning. The Innocence Project reports he is the 111th person to be freed from jail after DNA testing proved their innocence.