(CNN) A Georgia man who served 17 years of a 20-year sentence has been exonerated from his rape conviction and released from prison, after a judge agreed that new analysis of DNA evidence clears him.

Kerry Robinson, 44, walked out of prison in southern Georgia on Wednesday and into the arms of his sister, his son and other supporters, hours after a Colquitt County judge vacated his 2002 conviction and sentence.

"Modern DNA technology has further confirmed what we've known for a long time: Kerry Robinson is an innocent man," one of his lawyers, Rodney Zell, said in a news release from the Georgia Innocence Project , which helped push for Robinson's exoneration.

"I am so grateful that new technology is finally able to meet the incredibly high thresholds for righting wrongful convictions in Georgia," Zell said.

The key, supporters say, was new analysis of the very DNA evidence that was used to convict him. In other words: New technology shows that the interpretation presented at trial was wrong, and that in fact Robinson's DNA is not there, the project says.

Robinson, seen here shortly after his release Wednesday, will stay with relatives in southern Georgia, the Georgia Innocence Project says.

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