After serving 15 years for a brutal murder, a Tennessee man has been exonerated by a judge who ruled he was wrongly convicted.

The Davidson County District Attorney's Office announced that after a four-year effort by Joseph Webster's attorney to exonerate him, it "no longer has confidence in the conviction against Mr. Webster" and recommended the charges against him be dismissed. His exoneration will be the first in Nashville history since the Davidson County Conviction Review Unit was established in 2016, according to a statement from Webster's attorney Daniel Horwitz.

He was transferred from Tennessee Department of Corrections custody to the downtown Nashville detention center Tuesday night, where he was released, according to his attorney.

Webster was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Leroy Owens in 1998, according to court documents. Owens was at a friend's house when two men in a white station wagon arrived at the home and began beating Owens over what witnesses believed to be a drug debt, the documents said.

Owens was able to escape, missing a shoe, and run to another home. The resident asked Owens -- who was disheveled, bruised and scared -- to leave. When he tried to run again, the men caught up with Owens, and he was fatally assaulted with a cinder block, according to court documents.