a situation his lawyer, joel schwartz, could not abide. so schwartz followed the money like that life insurance payout to pam hupp, the one pam said was intended for betsy's daughters. and what do you know? >> miss hupp had funded a trust in the name of the kids approximately five days prior to the commencement of trial. about ten days after trial had concluded, the trust was defunded over 99.7% of what had been placed in there. >> reporter: which looked to schwartz an awful lot like a that money all along. >> i never doubted that that was her motive in the first place. so nothing surprised me. however, that in and of itself is something that the court of appeals needed to hear about. >> reporter: so schwartz filed an unusual short-cut motion asking for a hearing to consider the new evidence of what pam did with the insurance money. >> we thought the likelihood of success was very small. however, we had what i know to be an innocent man sitting in prison. so i was willing to take any shot. >> reporter: and what a surprise. in february, 2015