An Eastern Pennsylvania judge—admonishing the “egregious” behavior of the former prosecutor in a two-decades-plus-old murder case—dismissed charges against the death-row inmate who spent more than half his life in prison for the 1996 slayings of two cousins.

In an Oct. 29 opinion, Berks County Court of Common Pleas Judge Eleni Dimitriou Geishauser said Roderick Johnson, now 44, cannot be retried for the crimes under federal double jeopardy laws.