PORTLAND — Frank Gable, who was wrongly convicted of killing Oregon Corrections Director Michael Francke, was exonerated Monday, May 8.

Oregon U.S. District Magistrate Judge John Acosta ordered Gable’s unconditional release and barred the state or any political subdivision from ever trying him again for the 1989 murder. Gable was convicted by the Marion County District Attorney in 1991 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Acosta ruled Gable likely was innocent and did not receive a fair trial on April 18, 2019. He ordered that Gable either be given a new trial or have the charges dropped against him at that time. Acosta extended the deadline while the Oregon Department of Justice appealed the ruling all the way the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to accept the appeal on April 24.

The May 8 order followed a contentious May 1 status conference where the Oregon Department of Justice challenged Acosta’s authority to impose a 90-day decision deadline on the Marion County district attorney. Instead, Oregon Solicitor General Benjamin Gutman said the DA should take as long as necessary to decide whether to retry Gable, a stance that appeared to anger Acosta. Gable’s federal public defender, Nell Brown, call that position inhumane.

Francke was stabbed in the heart and bled to death outside his office in the department headquarters known as the Dome Building on Jan. 17, 1989. No suspect was charged with the crime until Gable, 15 months after the killing. He was convicted in 1991 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, despite no physical evidence connecting him to the crime. Although state courts upheld the conviction, Acosta and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed it.