Common Pleas Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan Thursday ordered a new trial for three men convicted and sentenced in the 1997 murder of 70-year-old Henrietta Nickens in her Chester apartment.

Derrick Chappell, Samuel Grasty and Morton Johnson have spent more than 20 years in prison for a murder they say they did not commit, writes Jesse Bunch for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The three men, now in their 40s, were barely out of high school, accused by police in 1997 of killing Nickens.

The men were each found guilty of murder by juries in the early 2000s, receiving life sentences.

But for the past 20 years, the men have said they were innocent. Their lawyer argued that unreliable witnesses, a false confession and unscrupulous police work led to their arrests.

Their lawyers contend that if the men were tried today, DNA technology not available in 1997 would exonerate them and point to a single, unknown perpetrator instead.

“We’re ecstatic,” said Paul Casteleiro, Grasty’s defense attorney and the legal director of exoneration nonprofit Centurion. “It’s an order that affirms what we’ve been telling the Delaware District Attorney’s Office for years — that these guys are innocent.”

Read more the new developments in this 27-year-old murder case in The Philadelphia Inquirer.