PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "“I’m free now,” Simmons told KFOR as he walked out of the courtroom on Wednesday. “It’s indescribable. I did 48 years. Justice is out the window. This is mercy. I’m happy. I’m ready to move on and make something of my life.”
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STORY: "Man imprisoned nearly 50 years for deadly Oklahoma robbery is freed after a judge orders a new trial," published by The Associated Press, on July 23, 2023.
GIST: "OKLAHOMA CITY: — "A man who had been imprisoned in Oklahoma for almost 50 years for a fatal shooting that he has long claimed he didn’t commit has been freed from custody after a judge ordered a new trial.
Glynn Ray Simmons had been convicted in the 1974 death during a robbery of Carolyn Sue Rogers, a liquor store clerk in Edmond, located just north of Oklahoma City.
A woman who was shot and injured during the robbery later picked Simmons out of a lineup. But Simmons, from Louisiana, has repeatedly said he wasn’t in Oklahoma but in his home state at the time of the robbery.
The Oklahoma County District Attorney‘s office had asked District Judge Amy Palumbo to vacate the sentence and set a date for a new trial, saying prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence in the case, including a police report that showed an eyewitness might have identified other suspects in the case and not Simmons and a co-defendant, Don Roberts.
During a court hearing on Wednesday, Palumbo vacated Simmons’ murder conviction and life sentence, saying he was entitled to relief “for the state’s failure to disclose police department reports which denied Glynn Simmons a fair trial.”
Simmons was 22 when he was convicted. He is now 70 years old.
“I’m free now,” Simmons told KFOR as he walked out of the courtroom on Wednesday. “It’s indescribable. I did 48 years. Justice is out the window. This is mercy. I’m happy. I’m ready to move on and make something of my life.”
A jury had originally sentenced Simmons and Roberts to death.
Their sentences were reduced to life in prison in 1977 after U.S. Supreme Court rulings related to capital punishment.
Roberts was released on parole in 2008 and testified at an April hearing that he was innocent, the Oklahoman reported.
Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna said the next step will be to evaluate the case for retrial, which was set for Oct. 23."
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan;
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/
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