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Ricky Dority spends most of his days playing with his grandchildren, feeding chickens, and working in the yard where he lives with his son鈥檚 family.

It鈥檚 a jarring change from where he was just several months ago, locked in a cell serving a life prison sentence at Oklahoma鈥檚 Joseph Harp Correctional Center in a killing he said he didn鈥檛 commit. After more than two decades behind bars, Mr. Dority had no chance at being released 鈥� until he used his pandemic relief funds to hire a dogged private investigator.

The investigator and students at the Oklahoma Innocence Project at Oklahoma City University, which is dedicated to exonerating wrongful convictions in the state, found inconsistencies in the state鈥檚 account of a 1997 cold-case killing, and Mr. Dority鈥檚 conviction was vacated in June by a Sequoyah County judge.

Now, Mr. Dority says he鈥檚 enjoying the 5-acre property in a quiet neighborhood of well-to-do homes in the rolling, forested hills of the Arkansas River Valley outside of Fort Smith. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e gone for a lot of years, you don鈥檛 take it for granted anymore.鈥�

Mr. Dority is one of nearly 3,400 people who have been exonerated across the country since 1989, mostly over murder convictions, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. In Oklahoma, there have been more than 43 exonerations in that time, not including three new exonerations this year.

The cases underscore a serious problem facing a judicial system in which many old convictions resulted from overworked defense attorneys, shoddy forensic work, overzealous prosecutors, and outdated investigative techniques.

The problem is particularly acute given Oklahoma鈥檚 history of sending people to death row, where 11 inmates have been exonerated since 1981. The issue has pushed a Republican-led legislative panel to consider whether a death penalty moratorium should be imposed.

In Oklahoma County, Glynn Ray Simmons was freed after spending nearly 50 years in prison, including time on death row, in a 1974 killing after a judge determined prosecutors failed to turn over evidence in the case, including a police report that showed an eyewitness might have identified other suspects.

And just this week, Perry Lott, who served more than 30 years in prison, had his rape and burglary conviction vacated in Pontotoc County after new DNA testing excluded him as the perpetrator. Pontotoc County, in particular, has come under intense scrutiny for a series of wrongful convictions in the 1980s that have been the subject of numerous books, including John Grisham鈥檚 鈥淭he Innocent Man,鈥� which he produced into a six-part documentary on Netflix.

The most common causes of wrongful convictions are eyewitness misidentification, misapplication of forensic science, false confessions, coerced pleas, and official misconduct, generally by police or prosecutors, according to the Innocence Project, a national organization based in New York.

In Mr. Dority鈥檚 case, he said he was railroaded by an overzealous sheriff and a state prosecutor eager to solve the killing of 28-year-old Mitchell Nixon, who was found beaten to death in 1997.

Investigators who reopened the case in 2014 coerced a confession from another man, Rex Robbins, according to Andrea Miller, the legal director of the Oklahoma Innocence Project. Mr. Robbins, who would plead guilty to manslaughter in Mr. Nixon鈥檚 killing, implicated Mr. Dority, who at the time was in a federal prison on a firearms conviction. Mr. Dority said he knew he didn鈥檛 have anything to do with the crime and found paperwork that proved he had been arrested on the day of the killing.

鈥淚 thought I was clear because I knew I didn鈥檛 have anything do with that murder,鈥� Mr. Dority said. 鈥淏ut they tried me for it and found me guilty of it.鈥�

Jurors heard about Mr. Robbins鈥� confession and testimony from a police informant who said Mr. Dority had changed bloody clothes at his house the night of the killing. They convicted him of first-degree murder and recommended a sentence of life without parole.

After years in prison, while most inmates spent their federal COVID-19 relief check in the commissary, Mr. Dority used his to hire a private investigator, he said. Bobby Staton had mostly investigated insurance fraud, but he took on the case and realized quickly that it was riddled with holes, Mr. Staton said.

He eventually turned to the university鈥檚 Oklahoma Innocence Project, which assigned a law student, Abby Brawner, to help investigate.

Their investigation turned when Mr. Staton and Ms. Brawner visited Robbins in the maximum-security Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite, and he recanted his statement implicating Mr. Dority.

鈥淚t was pretty intimidating,鈥� Ms. Brawner said. 鈥淓specially when you鈥檙e going in to meet someone who doesn鈥檛 know you鈥檙e coming and doesn鈥檛 want to talk to you.鈥�

Ms. Brawner and Mr. Staton also learned the informant didn鈥檛 live at the home where he told investigators Mr. Staton showed up in bloody clothes. When the actual homeowner testified at a hearing this summer, the judge dismissed the case.

Mr. Dority鈥檚 original attorneys were ineffective for not discovering the informant didn鈥檛 live at the home, the judge said, giving prosecutors 90 days to decide whether they will retry him. That three months has been extended, and prosecutors have said they intend to ask the judge for more time for DNA testing. Mr. Dority, confident in his innocence, said he鈥檚 not concerned about additional forensic testing.

Sequoyah County District Attorney Jack Thorp and former Sheriff Ron Lockhart did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. But Assistant District Attorney James Dunn, who is overseeing the case and was not in the office when it was originally prosecuted, said he agreed with the judge鈥檚 dismissal after hearing the homeowner鈥檚 testimony and learning a witness 鈥渨as not credible.鈥�

鈥淭he last thing I want to see is an innocent person in prison for a crime they didn鈥檛 commit,鈥� Mr. Dunn said. 鈥淏ecause that means the person who actually did commit the crime, or those persons, are still out there.鈥�

Meanwhile, Mr. Dority is learning to use a smartphone and the television remote control, he said. He鈥檚 thankful to Mr. Staton and the Innocence Project and says his case proves others are wrongfully imprisoned in Oklahoma.

鈥淎fter they鈥檝e done what they鈥檝e done to me, I know there are people in that prison who are innocent that need to be out and need help getting out,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f they hadn鈥檛 gotten me out, I鈥檇 have been in there for the rest of my life.鈥�

This story was reported by The Associated Press.