Innocent Man Wrongly Imprisoned For 48 Years Awarded $7 Million In Settlement

Innocent Man Wrongly Imprisoned For 48 Years Awarded $7 Million In Settlement

A 71-year-old man who spent nearly five decades in prison for a crime he did not commit will receive a $7.15 million settlement from the city responsible for his wrongful conviction. Glynn Simmons, who holds the record for the longest period of wrongful imprisonment before being exonerated in U.S. history, was released last year after serving 48 years, one month, and 18 days behind bars………CONTINUE READING

On Monday, the Edmond, Oklahoma, city council approved the settlement to com

pensate Simmons and address claims against the city and a detective involved in his case, according to public records.

Simmons’ legal team has described the settlement as a “partial resolution” of his lawsuit, which alleges that city officials and police officers fabricated evidence to falsely accuse him of murder.

Lead attorney Elizabeth Wang stated, “Mr. Simmons spent an inordinate amount of time imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. While this settlement with Edmond won’t return the years lost, it will enable him to move forward and continue pursuing his claims against Oklahoma City and a key detective.”

In 1975, Simmons and Don Roberts were sentenced to death for the murder of a 30-year-old liquor store clerk during a robbery in Edmond. Their sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment. The conviction relied solely on the testimony of a teenage witness who had survived being shot during the robbery. Although she initially identified them in a police lineup, subsequent investigations questioned the accuracy of her identification.

Both Simmons and Roberts testified that they were not in Oklahoma at the time of the crime. U.S. District Court Judge Amy Palumbo overturned Simmons’s conviction in July of last year, and he was declared innocent in December. Roberts, who was also wrongfully convicted, was released from prison in 2008, according to The National Registry of Exonerations, a project by three U.S. universities

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