Crime Man Wrongfully Convicted of New Orleans Rape Freed After 36 Years in Jail Evidence proving Sullivan Walter's innocence for a 1986 rape was never presented in court By Tommy McArdle Tommy McArdle Twitter Tommy McArdle is a digital news writer at PEOPLE covering stories across all of the brand's verticals. Prior to joining PEOPLE, Tommy covered the entertainment industry at Looper and sports at The Sporting News and Boston.com. He graduated from Emerson College in 2019. People Editorial Guidelines Published on August 26, 2022 01:00 PM Share Tweet Pin Email Sullivan Walter, 53, left, holds a shirt reading 'Justice.' . Photo: Baton Rouge Advocate staff photo by Travis Spradling A New Orleans man was ordered immediately released from prison after 36 years of incarceration for a home invasion-rape he did not commit. On Thursday, the Innocence Project New Orleans and the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office's motion to have Sullivan Walter's conviction vacated due to withheld physical evidence and poor testimony was accepted by state district judge Darryl Derbigny, according to the Associated Press and The Times Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. Walter, now 53, was 17 when he was arrested in connection to the rape, which happened in May 1986, according to an IPNO press release obtained by PEOPLE. Walter was prosecuted as an adult for the crime, according to IPNO. The IPNO said in its statement Thursday that testing on seminal fluids recovered from the victim proved that Walter did not commit the crime, "but the jury that convicted Mr. Walter did not learn of this and it has never before been fully presented to a court." "To say this was unconscionable is an understatement," Derbigny told Walter Thursday, according to the AP. After Walter appeared in a New Orleans court, he was taken back to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel where he was officially released, free for the first time since he was a teenager, according to the AP and The Times Picayune. Sullivan Walter. Baton Rouge Advocate staff photo by Travis Spradling Walter's incarceration stands as the longest wrongful incarceration of a minor in Louisiana state history and the fifth longest in U.S. history, according to IPNO's release. The Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment Friday. IPNO successfully argued before Judge Derbigny that results of that testing were not presented at Walter's original trial or motions for new hearings "due to a combination of his trial attorney's failure to effectively elicit this evidence from relevant witnesses and due to misrepresentations made by the police officer analyst who examined the seminal fluid in this case." Walter was originally represented by an attorney "with a troubled history of disciplinary findings" and his original trial lasted just one day, including jury selection, according to IPNO. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. While the motion states the victim — identified only as L.S. — believed she could identify the perpetrator at the time, "all the times that she could observe him was either masked, in an unlit room at night, and/or threatening her not to look at him," according to the motion. When Walter was arrested for an unrelated burglary nearly six weeks after the rape, he was subsequently arrested for the rape based on the victim's identification and the fact that Walter was wearing a blue baseball cap similar to the perpetrator's, according to the motion. "What is unusual about this case is how little effort was made to hide the injustice being done to Mr. Walter," IPNO legal director Richard Davis said in a statement. "The lawyers and law enforcement involved acted as if they believed that they could do what they chose to a Black teenager from a poor family and would never be scrutinized or held to account. This is not just about individuals and their choices, but the systems that let them happen." "I'm just ready to live," Walter said after his release Thursday, according to The Times Picayune. "I just want to live an honest, free life." The victim in the rape has since died, according to the motion. The victim's son "expressed regret on behalf of his mother about the wrongful conviction," when authorities reached out to him, according to the AP. IPNO began investigating Walter's case in October 2021, according to the motion. "This is horrible," Derbigny said on Thursday, according to The Times Picayune. "I'm at a loss of words to express the sorrow and the anger I have at the treatment you've been dealt by the system."