A 70-year-old man, Glynn Simmons, has been exonerated by a U.S. judge who ruled that he was innocent of the crime for which he was accused and imprisoned for almost half a century. Glynn Simmons had spent 48 years, one month, and 18 days behind bars for the murder of Carolyn Rogers during a liquor store robbery in an Oklahoma City suburb.
Oklahoma County District Judge, Amy Palumbo, issued an order on Tuesday, officially exonerating Simmons. The judge stated, “This court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the offence for which Mr. Simmons was convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned… was not committed by Mr. Simmons.”
Simmons, now the longest-serving inmate to be cleared according to the National Registry of Exonerations, was 22 years old at the time of his arrest. He and his co-defendant, Don Roberts, were convicted based on testimony from a teenager who had been shot in the head. The teenager identified other suspects during police line-ups. Both were sentenced to death in 1975, later reduced to life in prison due to U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the death penalty. Roberts was released on parole in 2008.
Simmons, maintaining his innocence, claimed he was in his home state of Louisiana at the time of the murder. In July, a district court vacated his sentence, revealing that prosecutors had failed to disclose all evidence to defense lawyers, including a witness identifying other suspects.
Although wrongfully convicted people in Oklahoma are eligible for compensation of up to $175,000, Simmons is currently relying on donations, primarily from a GoFundMe campaign, as he undergoes cancer treatment. One of Simmons’ attorneys, Joe Norwood, emphasized the state of Oklahoma’s wrongful deprivation of a significant part of his life, urging people to support Simmons through the GoFundMe campaign. Norwood highlighted that Simmons had “50 years stolen from him, the prime of his work life when he could have been getting experiences, developing skills. That was taken from him, by no fault of his own, by other people.”