In North Carolina, Ronnie Long, an African American who spent 44 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, walked out of the Albemarle Correctional Institute Thursday a free man. In 1976, Long was convicted of rape by an all-white jury and sentenced to 80 years in prison. In 2015, his lawyers learned that investigators had withheld exculpatory evidence proving his innocence, while witnesses for the state committed perjury at his trial. It would take several more years and a ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Long to win his freedom.