2023-12-21 05:10:00
Time.news – A 71-year-old man has been declared innocent in the US state of Oklahoma after spending almost 50 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Glynn Simmons served more time behind barsbefore he was found innocent, than any other prisoner in U.S. history, according to the National Register.
Simmons was released July later having served a total of 48 years, one month and 18 days in prison. He and another man, Don Roberts, had been sentenced to death in 1975 for the murder the previous year of a 30-year-old liquor store clerk during a robbery in Edmond, Oklahoma. Sentences that were later commuted to life imprisonment.
After 48 years of imprisonment, Glynn Simmons formally exonerated in Oklahoma
— The Oklahoman (@TheOklahoman_) December 19, 2023
Simmons and Roberts were convicted solely on the testimony of a teenage client who had been shot in the head during the robbery but survived. The girl had chosen them in a confrontation with the police, but a subsequent investigation had cast doubt on the reliability of her identifications. Both men also said at trial that they weren’t even in Oklahoma at the time of the killing.
The judge of the United States District Court Amy Palumbo overturned Simmons’ conviction in July and declared him innocent during Tuesday’s hearing in county District Court. “This is a day we’ve been waiting for for a long, long time,” Simmons told reporters. “Today we can say that justice has finally been done.”
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