His eyes filling with tears, Michael Robinson says when he was paroled after 26 years in prison, he just wanted to see his family and pay his respects to his late mother and father.

"I wanted to visit my parent’s grave. That was hard, that was hard," said Michael Robinson.

Robinson's parents died while he was behind bars for a murder he says he didn't commit.

His Legal Aid lawyers say new testing of an old DNA sample clears him of fatally stabbing his estranged wife in Queens in 1993.

"You get to before the jury that underneath the fingernails of the deceased is DNA evidence and the results are that it's 78 trillion times more likely that it is not Mr. Robinson, absolutely the jury would be acquitting him," said Harold Ferguson, Legal Aid Society Appeal Attorney.

Robinson was sentenced to 25 years to life.

Now at 52, he's fighting for a new trial, and for the right to use the new DNA results as evidence.

“I never gave up the fight. I said to myself that I am going to continue to fight and get myself out of prison because I didn't want to die in prison for something I didn't do," said Robinson.

The Queens District Attorney's Office says the new DNA results do not matter, explaining:

"The presence or absence of the defendant's DNA under the fingernails of the victim is irrelevant. We never argued that it was the defendant's DNA. And the evidence that convicted the defendant remains intact."

Robinson's lawyers disagree saying the only murder witness may have had dementia.

"All you had was the testimony an 89-year-old woman, legally blind," said Harold Ferguson, Legal Aid Society Appeal Attorney.

Robinson's attorneys say his estranged wife's boyfriend may have killed her.

While locked up, Robinson applied to have the DNA retested.

He spent a lot of time in the prison's law library.

"I did the research for a few months, filed the motion and got myself in the higher court," said Robinson.

"When you see someone like Michael Robinson who lost half of his life to a crime he didn't commit, that is a man that has suffered in a way that none of us can imagine," said Terri Rosenblatt, Legal Aid Society, DNA Unit.

Robinson says his family suffered too.

"They fought for me every day of their life that they were here, up until the day they passed away," said Robinson.

Robinson is scheduled to be back in court later this month.