After 48 years, a man who says he was wrongfully convicted of murder has officially had his case dismissed.
Glynn Simmons was 22 when he was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1974 death of Carolyn Sue Rogers at a local liquor store. Simmons is now 70.
He received a death penalty sentence in 1975. However, his sentence was modified to life in prison in 1977 following a U.S. Supreme Court decision, according to Oklahoma County District Court Attorney Vicki Zemp Behenna.
In April, Behenna requested that Simmons’ conviction be vacated and retried after a review of the case found that “a lineup and certain police reports that were available at the time were not turned over to the defense.”
Behenna argued that the circumstances “cast a shadow over his right to a fair trial.”
In July, Oklahoma County District Court Judge Amy Palumbo vacated Simmons’ conviction and set the case for a new trial, allowing Simmons to be released for the first time in 48 years.
Behenna then asked for the case to be dismissed, arguing that the state will not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Simmons was responsible for the death.
Behenna said in a statement that this is because there is no longer physical evidence; the original investigators and detectives in the case are not available or deceased; and the surviving victims are not available or deceased.
Behenna added the defense alleges that their alternate suspect was identified in one of the lineups.
Palumbo ruled Tuesday that the case will be dismissed with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be retried.
“I plan to use my remaining time to help others who are still stuck where I was,” said Simmons in an online post. “We need to fix this system so that what happened to me will never happen to anyone else, ever again!”
He said he is currently undergoing chemotherapy for liver cancer.
Nothing will change until the prosecutors who hide the evidence face serving the time for the crime they’re prosecuting, or more.
Hide evidence in murder trial? You get the murder sentence. Thats the price you pay for breaking the law and making someone else suffer those terms.
another day in the land of the free
Why is it that these kind of news almost always show a black men that was convicted without fair trial, or later proven innocent? Almost as if there is a systemic issue on top of a systemic issue.
Abolish capital punishment
I’ve feel like there’s a common characteristic with nearly every one of these long term wrongful imprisonment cases that comes to light.
I can’t quite seem to put my finger on it.
Ah well, I’m sure it’s nothing.
You could go looking for it. You don’t even need a car, you could just take a cab.
I feel like one of us is missing the other’s point. That person could be me. :-)
Could be 13 or 12 things we agree on, though…
Oh you are clever.
I did not see that coming.
Let me just tap the F12 key a few times before I post this.
We’re square, cuz I’m deffo gonna steal “Just press F12 to display the problem”
We did it folks. The system succeeded in ensuring justice for this man. It only cost him his entire adult life.
This my state that are so happy to have restated the death plenty. Not word on our local news about this case. Oklahoma is scum. I agree I think prosecutor should face charges and get same sentence if found to have broken law to get a conviction.
Second case I’ve read about today where the police hid exonerating evidence. Maybe this thing where we reward them for convicting anyone regardless of actual guilt is creating some perverse incentives.
Do they really need more reasons to abandon capital punishment than that?
A few things to note:
- This is not saying he is innocent, just that there is room for doubt.
- His sentence was switched to life probably after the Supreme Court rightly made the death penalty unconstitutional.
But yes, the possibility that the accused is innocent is absolutely one of best reasons we should not be executing people. We have made mistakes and killed innocent people in the past and we will continue to do it in the future in states that allow it.
They’ll cover this on 48 hours or something with uplifting music at the end and tears in this dude’s eyes as he walks out free finally. 😢🎉🎶
How anyone could buy that a story about an awful crime, some unrelated person losing decades their life to jail, and a perpetrator running free to commit more crimes because nobody involved in the justice system can be bothered to do their fucking job is in any way uplifting is beyond me, but they always frame it that way.
Edit: They’ll also do a softball interview with the DA and/or the cops where they’ll maintain that the person’s guilty and that they had the right guy the whole time.
The cynic in me thinks they are kicking him out so that they do not have to pay for chemo.
