California passed a new law, which took effect in January 2015, with the man who was the inspiration behind the legislation as the first beneficiary.

The case involves 65-year-old William Richards, who was convicted in 1997 of first-degree murder of his wife, Pamela, based on a bite-mark testimony of an expert who eventually recanted, reports San Jose Mercury News.

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The expert, Norman Sperber, said the mark was consistent with the unique features of Richards' teeth.

Richards won an appeal with a San Bernardino County court but California appealed and the original ruling stayed.

In 2012, the State Supreme Court confirmed further the court decision on a vote of 4-3. The judges said even if the expert withdrew his testimony, it did not mean that what the expert said was false, which would be ground to see a convict free.

Pamela was actually having an affair and she had informed a counselor a month before she was killed that she was afraid of her husband.

In pushing for the reversal of the court decision, Jan Stiglitz, the lawyer of Richards, insisted that the prosecution case was circumstantial.

He pointed out that blue fiber found in Pamela's fingernails did not come from Richards's shirt as well as hair and DNA on a paving stone that the prosecution alleged was used to kill her.

The California governor signed the law in September 2014. The author of the bill said expert testimony must be treated like eyewitness testimony, which when taken back, provides strong ground to overturn a conviction.

The court, though, is not pressured to reverse the decision, but Stiglitz hopes a hearing would be scheduled by March to give Richards, who has spent half of his adult life in jail, a chance to clear his name.

Commenting on these developments, Loyola Law School criminal law professor Laurie Levenson notes that a growing number of experts are recanting, not out of guilt but due to the fact that science changes. "You want a legal system that recognizes that reality," he adds.

TagsMurder, expert testimony, california