Frank Gable spent more than 29 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. On Thursday, July 30, a Marion County judge made it official.

Circuit Judge Manuel Perez signed a certificate of innocence for Gable, according to The Oregonian. The certificate states that Gable proved his innocence by a preponderance of evidence "of all crimes for which he was wrongly convicted."

It was filed in a pending civil case at the same Marion County courthouse where Gable was originally convicted.

The ruling caps one of Oregon's most notorious wrongful conviction cases. In 1989, Oregon Corrections Director Michael Francke, 42, was fatally stabbed and found dead on the north porch of the Dome Building in Salem, where the Department of Corrections was headquartered. Gable was convicted of the killing in 1991 and sentenced to life without parole.

A federal magistrate judge overturned that conviction in 2019, finding that no reasonable juror would have convicted Gable given another man's multiple confessions to Francke's stabbing and the fact that nearly all trial witnesses had recanted their testimony.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision.

Gable was released from Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas on June 28, 2019. He is 67 and lives in Kansas.

The certificate of innocence goes further than the 2019 federal ruling. It constitutes a state court's affirmative finding of innocence, strengthening Gable's position in his ongoing civil litigation against Oregon.

Settlement fight continues

The state did not oppose the innocence certificate. Lawyers for Oregon told Judge Perez they took no position on Gable's motion.

But the money remains contested. The state offered nearly $2 million plus attorney fees in March 2025 to settle Gable's wrongful conviction lawsuit. That offer, signed by senior assistant attorney general Michelle Enfield, explicitly stated it was not an admission of liability.

Gable and his lawyers have argued in court for additional compensation covering the nearly four years he spent on federal supervised release while the state appealed the ruling overturning his conviction.

They also seek reimbursement for costs paid to make phone calls while Gable was in prison. The state opposes the supervised-release compensation.

The Oregon Attorney General's office did not publicly respond to the certificate of innocence.

Separate lawsuit targets 24 officers

Gable has a separate federal lawsuit pending against 24 police officers and investigators, filed in July 2024. That suit alleges their improper investigative tactics led to his wrongful conviction in the killing of Oregon's prisons chief.

Both cases remain pending in federal and state court.