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But the dismissal will not declare Stevens innocent. Nor will it rewrite the facts of a case in which Stevens took thousands of dollars in favors and freebies from wealthy friends.

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"He still had gifts he received," juror Colleen Walsh said Monday.

Gifts he received
Those that came to mind, she said, were the $2,700 massage chair, a custom stained-glass window worth $3,200, and a $29,000 fish sculpture. None of those had anything to do with the home renovations or the disputed testimony.

"All those he still did not claim" on Senate forms, said Walsh, who said the new evidence might have saved Stevens on a few counts, but not others.

Stevens and his supporters responded to the Justice Department's admission as if it pronounced his innocence.

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Rejection of defense
There was no mention of the fact that jurors unanimously rejected Stevens' defense.

At trial, he said he didn't disclose the items he received because they were not gifts. The massage chair, for instance, remained in his house for seven years but Stevens said it was a loan. He said he assumed the stained-glass window was paid for, since his wife takes care of such things. The fish statute was a donation to his foundation, he said, and only remained on his front porch because that's where the donors shipped it.

Jurors convicted him on all of that, and none of it would have been changed by the newly discovered evidence.

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Michael Sklaire, a former corruption prosecutor, said the decision to dismiss the case was more about punishing the prosecutors for withholding evidence than about exonerating Stevens. When the case against a drug dealer falls apart, Sklaire said, the charges disappear but the defendant can't really say he's innocent because he still got arrested with drugs.

Unique case
Stevens accepted things and did not disclose them. Jurors said that was criminal.

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