An Oklahoma man has been exonerated of a homicide he didn’t commit after serving virtually 50 years in jail.
He made historical past, in accordance with the Nationwide Registry of Exonerations, by having the longest-served wrongful sentence in the US.
On Tuesday, Dec. 19, Decide Amy Palumbo of Oklahoma County District Court docket declared Glynn Simmons harmless of the crime.
“This can be a day we’ve been ready on for a protracted, very long time. It lastly got here,” Simmons mentioned, in accordance with KFOR, including, “We are able to say justice was executed right this moment, lastly, and I’m pleased.”
Simmons was initially sentenced to the loss of life penalty and incarcerated in 1975 on the age of twenty-two after being convicted of first-degree homicide in reference to a liquor retailer theft in Edmond, Oklahoma, on Dec. 30, 1974. The 22-year-old Black man had been greater than 700 miles from Edmond that day.
The now-71-year-old Simmons was convicted of killing white retailer clerk Carolyn Sue Rogers in the course of the theft. One other lady was shot within the head in the course of the theft however survived, and he or she was their major witness after the crime.
Three days after the slaying, the eyewitness, then-18-year-old Belinda Brown, informed police from her hospital mattress that the liquor retailer holdup was perpetrated by two Black males, and he or she helped their composite sketch artist with an outline of the pair.
However after the leads within the case went chilly, Edmond Police returned to Brown in February 1975 with a sequence of lineups consisting of Black males who had been arrested at a celebration close by Oklahoma Metropolis.
The white lady participated in eight separate lineups and recognized at the least 5 males as doubtlessly being concerned within the capturing.
Someway, Simmons and one other man named Don Roberts have been named because the suspects.
“I by no means was picked out of a lineup,” Simmons mentioned in an interview with Information 4. “I’m nonetheless making an attempt to determine how did I get recognized because the suspect? How did the police make me the suspect when the witness didn’t even establish me?”
Earlier than this trial, neither Simmons nor Robert knew one another. Each of them additionally had alibis concerning the place they have been on the day of Rogers’ slaying.
Simmons was in Harvey, Louisiana, on the time the ladies have been shot. Not one of the detectives engaged on the case checked Simmons’ alibi or went to Louisiana to confirm his story of the place he was.
They did examine Roberts’ alibi. The Edmond Police detectives traveled to Texas and found he had punched a time clock on the time of the homicide. Nevertheless, they didn’t imagine the proof to be dependable, and in 1975, Roberts, who was 21 on the time, was convicted of the homicide. Like Simmons, who was labeled because the shooter, Roberts was given the loss of life penalty, which was later modified in 1977 to life in jail for each. Roberts was paroled in 2008.
A long time later, a contemporary have a look at Simmons’ case led to his exoneration after 48 years and 18 days.
In 1997, it regarded like every part started to vary for him when he employed a personal investigator. Again within the Nineteen Nineties, the Oklahoma Court docket of Felony Appeals admitted that the state had saved vital proof from the Simmons case. This withholding of proof is named a Brady violation and is unconstitutional.
Nonetheless, Simmons couldn’t receive a brand new trial.
In 2019, he employed a brand new lawyer, Joe Norwood, a civil rights lawyer who had labored to get others exonerated after being wrongfully convicted. He labored for 3 years to form a case to current to the courts to assist Simmons’ wrongful conviction.
In 2022, Norwood offered a brand new movement and obtained a listening to earlier than Decide Palumbo in April 2023. Palumbo issued her ruling on the attraction in July when she vacated Simmons’ conviction and ordered him launched on bond instantly. He had served 48 years, 5 months, and 18 days for against the law he didn’t commit.
Final week, in a courtroom session delivering her ruling on Simmons’ utility for exoneration, Pulumbo dominated that “by clear and convincing proof” which had by no means been shared together with his protection legal professionals within the Seventies, Rogers’ homicide “was not dedicated by Mr. Simmons.”
After he was launched in July, Simmons, who lately has been recognized with stage 4 most cancers, spoke to the press about by no means giving up.
“It’s a lesson in resilience and tenacity. Don’t let no person let you know that it could’t occur, as a result of it actually can,” he mentioned, The New York Instances reported.
Simmons’ lawyer, Norwood, mentioned that the exoneration gives grounds for a federal civil rights lawsuit, and there’s a possible state lawsuit the place he might obtain as much as $175,000 in compensation. In Oklahoma, wrongful conviction settlements are restricted by statute to a most quantity of six figures.
“He was disadvantaged of labor expertise and with the ability to have a profession the place you could possibly financially safe your self and your loved ones. All of that was taken from him,” the lawyer mentioned after final week’s ruling, noting that Simmons can’t present for himself and has been dwelling off of donations made by a GoFundMe.
Over the previous three months, the crowdfunding marketing campaign has acquired 3,200 donations and raised $314,000 of the $500,000.
