A Savannah judge on Wednesday morning set a $30,000 bond for each of three soldiers who've been in prison 25 years on a murder conviction the Georgia Supreme Court overturned last month. Defense attorneys said they arranged a transfer of the the funds needed, and a few hours later, the Chatham County jail released their clients.

“The three men walked to freedom at 3:32 p.m.,” said Jim McCloskey, founder of Centurion Ministries, a Princeton-based innocence project. Their families were there to greet them with hugs. One mom said it was the second best day of her life, after the day her son was born. McCloskey said he told her, “This is a second birth.”

A dramatic courtroom moment came when Chatham County Chief Assistant District Attorney Greg McConnell said his office was taking no position on the defense request for bond, pending a decision on whether to retry the case.

“We were surprised about that,” Peter Camiel, lead defense counsel for the three soldiers, said afterward.

What followed then was “a very low-key hearing,” according to Camiel: McConnell summarized events in the case, while Camiel went on to argue for his clients' release on bond.

Mark Jason Jones, Kenneth Eric Gardiner and Dominic Brian Lucci sat with their lawyers at the defense table, but “didn't say a word,” Camiel said.

According to court documents, Jones, Gardiner and Lucci, now in their mid-40s, were 20 and 21, had just returned from duty in Iraq and Korea, and were stationed at the Fort Stewart Army base near Savannah when they were arrested. The soldiers, who are white, were found guilty in November 1992 of murdering Stanley Jackson, an African-American. Jackson was shot in the street with a high-powered assault rifle, possibly an AK-47, and left dead in an intersection. A witness identified two of the defendants as the shooters, hanging out of the windows of a 1992 Chevrolet Cavalier and firing rapidly, and said a third man was driving. The men were sentenced to life in prison, plus five years. But the eyewitness later recanted and said he was pressured to identify men he couldn't clearly see, documents said.

What led to the reversal, though, was a hidden police report that showed a similar crime had taken place the same night after the soldiers had been arrested.

In overturning the convictions of Jones, Gardiner and Lucci last month, Chief Justice P. Harris Hines wrote for a unanimous court, ruling that prosecutors improperly withheld evidence from the defense that could have changed the outcome of the trial.

Another encouraging moment for the defense came in Wednesday's hearing when McConnell told the judge that other evidence supports the witness recanting, Camiel said.

The defense team includes local counsel Steve Sparger of Savannah and Paul Casteleiro, legal director of Centurion.

On Wednesday, Judge Timothy Walmsley set the defendants' bond at $30,000 each—the same sum set when the men were awaiting trial 25 years ago, McCloskey  recalled. McCloskey said he first took on the case after receiving a letter from one of the soldiers in 2009.

McCloskey said  a benefactor donated the $90,000 in bond funds.

“I can't imagine what it's like for these three men and their families to have justice finally coming their way,” McCloskey said, “Free after 25 years of wrongful imprisonment for a crime they had absolutely nothing to do with.”

The judge set another hearing on Jan. 25 to discuss whether or not the DA plans to retry the case.

A spokesman for District Attorney Meg Heap said her office is still reviewing 11 boxes of documents from the trial and has no further response.

“They have to do their due diligence,” Camiel said. “We're hopeful that within the next month or so, they're going to decide to dismiss.”