African-American Compensated Decades After Death Sentence
In 1975, a 23-year-old African American man in Oklahoma is convicted of murder. He spends more time in prison than any other inmate in U.S. history before being released at the age of 71. The city pays him a multi-million dollar settlement.
A U.S. court has awarded more than seven million dollars to an African American man who was wrongfully convicted of murder and spent nearly 50 years in prison. On Monday, the city council of Edmond, Oklahoma, voted to settle a lawsuit brought by Glynn Simmons against the city and a police officer, according to public documents.
Simmons and another suspect were sentenced to death in 1975 for allegedly killing a 30-year-old liquor store employee during a robbery in Edmond the previous year. Their sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment.
The men's conviction was based solely on the testimony of a teenage girl - the defendants claimed they were not in Oklahoma at the time of the murder. The girl claimed to have identified the suspects during a police lineup. However, a later investigation raised serious doubts about the reliability of her testimony.
City remains silent, defense calls it a 'partial settlement'
While Simmons' co-defendant was released from prison in 2008, Simmons was not released until last year - after 48 years and 18 days behind bars. This makes the now 71-year-old the longest-serving inmate in U.S. history, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. A district judge overturned his conviction last July, and he was officially exonerated in December.
A spokesperson for Edmond declined to comment on the settlement. However, Simmons' lawyers said the payment is a "partial settlement" of his lawsuit "against the cities and the police who fabricated evidence to frame him for murder."
His attorney, Elizabeth Wang, said, "Our client has spent a tragic span of time in prison for a crime he did not commit. While he can never get that time back, this settlement with Edmond allows him to move forward and continue pursuing his claims against Oklahoma City and a high-ranking police officer."
The settlement amount, which exceeds seven million dollars, was awarded by the court to Glynn Simmons, whose conviction for murder was overturned due to questionable evidence and unreliable testimony. The Commission, working on exoneration cases, may consider this case as a notable example of miscarriage of justice that required significant compensation.
