Before Prince William County prosecutors made headlines in the Beltway sniper case, they helped send former Chantilly High School football player Justin Wolfe to Virginia’s death row for the March 2001 murder of Danny Petrole, a community college student and the son of a retired Secret Service agent. Petrole was also the kingpin of one of the largest drug rings ever uncovered in Northern Virginia.

But now a federal judge in Norfolk has ordered Wolfe’s release, raising disturbing questions about prosecutorial misconduct in capital cases.