LAS VEGAS -- After 20 years, prisoner Fred Steese got a judge to listen to his appeal, granting him his freedom, however slight.

Everyone's innocent in prison, or so the old joke goes.

"It's terrible," Steese said. "Nobody believes you."

The surprise for Steese was not that it took him 20 years to prove his innocence -- it's that it didn't take him longer.

Read the Order Regarding Actual Innocence

"People looked at me and said, ‘Well, you've been found guilty of a jury of your peers, how can you be innocent?' and I said, ‘Well, they made a mistake,'" Steese said.

A jury convicted Steese in 1995 of the murder of Gerard Soules, an entertainer with a poodle act at Circus Circus.

LAS VEGAS -- Newly unsealed documents are painting a clearer picture of former North Las Vegas Assemblyman Steven Brooks in the days before his first arrest.

On Jan. 19, police took him in for allegedly threatening the life of Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick.

The grand jury testimony reveals how the former lawmaker's family and friends tried and failed to get Brooks mental health treatment before the arrest that ended his political career.

Friend and Las Vegas Councilman Ricki Barlow was first to testify and recalled how Brooks called him from inside Seven Hills Behavioral Health Center in mid-January.

Brooks' wife later told Barlow that family had noticed her husband showing "erratic" and "spazzy" behavior.

Barlow claimed Brooks' behavior changed during a recent move.

Neighbors told the I-Team Brooks moved out of his house after feeling threatened by gangs.