{"id":26947,"date":"2024-01-07T05:33:43","date_gmt":"2024-01-07T10:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=26947"},"modified":"2024-01-07T05:33:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-07T10:33:43","slug":"glynn-simmons-freedom-exhilarating-for-man-exonerated-after-48-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/01\/07\/glynn-simmons-freedom-exhilarating-for-man-exonerated-after-48-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Glynn Simmons: Freedom ‘exhilarating’ for man exonerated after 48 years"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Glynn Simmons took a long glance out the window of the car passenger seat as he drove with a friend along the freeway to Tulsa, Oklahoma. His gaze was fixated on the night sky, lit up with stars.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It was a sight the 70-year-old had not been able to witness for nearly half a century, after spending most of his life in prison for a murder he did not commit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It’s things like that \u2026 watching the seasons change, the foliage, simple things that you couldn’t do in prison. You couldn’t enjoy it. You couldn’t see it,” Mr Simmons told the BBC. “It’s exhilarating.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Simmons was released from prison in July 2023. In December he was declared innocent in the 1974 murder of Carolyn Sue Rogers. His is the longest known wrongful conviction in the US.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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His sentence was vacated after a district court found that prosecutors had not turned over all evidence to defence lawyers, including that a witness had identified other suspects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He was 22 when he and a co-defendant, Don Roberts, were convicted and sentenced to death in 1975, a punishment that was later reduced to life in prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Simmons spoke to the BBC this week about his newfound freedom, his current battle with Stage 4 cancer and the hope that carried him through 48 years behind bars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Being innocent, it helps you to keep your faith,” he said. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t lose my faith, lots of times. But it’s like a rubber band – you expand and you return.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A ‘conscious disregard of justice’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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In January 1975 Mr Simmons was one of several people arrested at a party on separate “bogus robbery charges”, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He was brought into a police station, where officers asked him to participate in a line-up for the murder of Rogers the month before, in a liquor store robbery in an Oklahoma City suburb. The murder of Rogers – who was working as a store clerk when she was shot in the head – has yet to be solved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I had just turned 21. I had no previous experience with the criminal justice system,” Mr Simmons said. “I didn’t know I had a right to an attorney, a right to refuse. I had no clue.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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