A man who spent nearly 50 years in prison for a murder he says he didn’t commit is one step closer to clearing his name. Raymond Gaines was in Suffolk Superior court Friday, still fighting his 1976 conviction for the armed robbery and murder of the owner of a shoe repair shop in Roxbury.

On Friday, a judge agreed that his GPS monitoring bracelet could be removed. “I’m overjoyed every day I wake up, and I don’t see bars in front of me, and I have an opportunity to progress and move forward and just try to put pieces of my life back together with my family,” he said.