A man who had a nearly decade-old murder conviction overturned this summer has been brought back to Douglas County to be charged again, but this time he’s likely to enter a plea.

Damon L. McCray, 32, arrived at the Douglas County Jail on Monday after being transported from Hutchinson Correctional Facility. He has a plea hearing scheduled for Friday in District Court.

McCray was charged in the August 1996 shooting of fellow Topekan Onzie Branch outside Langston’s Nightclub, 806 W. 24th St.

His first trial ended in a hung jury, but prosecutors tried the case again and he was convicted of first-degree murder. McCray later filed a civil lawsuit in District Court saying he deserved a new trial.

It wasn’t until this summer that District Court Judge Michael Malone ruled McCray was right. Malone found that then-Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney’s office failed to notify McCray’s attorney that an informant who claimed to have heard McCray make statements about the shooting had recanted his story.