An Oklahoma judge has cleared a man who spent 48 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit, marking the lengthiest wrongful sentence in the US.
Glynn Simmons, 70, was released in July when it emerged that vital evidence wasn’t disclosed to his defense team.
Recently, a county district attorney stated that the evidence wasn’t sufficient for a new trial.
But in a subsequent ruling, Judge Amy Palumbo declared Mr. Simmons innocent, affirming, “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.”
After the decision, Mr. Simmons conveyed a message of resilience, telling reporters, “Don’t let nobody tell you that it can’t happen, because it really can.”
His 48-year incarceration stemmed from the 1974 murder of Carolyn Sue Rogers during a liquor store robbery in an Oklahoma City suburb.
Convicted at 22 alongside co-defendant Don Roberts, Mr. Simmons always maintained his innocence, asserting he was in Louisiana when the crime occurred.
A July court decision to vacate his sentence revealed crucial evidence, including a witness identifying other suspects, which prosecutors had not disclosed.
Their convictions relied partly on a teenager’s testimony, shot in the head, who later pointed to different men in police line-ups and contradicted her own statements, per the National Registry of Exonerations.
Roberts was paroled in 2008.
Mr. Simmons, battling liver cancer, has received support through a GoFundMe page for living expenses and chemotherapy.
Oklahoma offers compensation of up to $175,000 to wrongfully convicted individuals who served time.
Source-BBC
