Oklahoma judge rules a man who wrongfully spent nearly 50 years in prison for murder is innocent
Glynn Simmons, 71, who was released in July after prosecutors agreed that key evidence in his case was not turned over to his defense lawyers, was ruled innocent Tuesday.
“This court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the offense for which Mr. Simmons was convicted, sentenced and imprisoned... was not committed by Mr. Simmons,” according to the ruling by Oklahoma County District Judge Amy Palumbo.
The ruling makes Simmons eligible for up to $175,000 in compensation from the state for wrongful conviction and opens the door for a federal lawsuit against Oklahoma City and law enforcement involved in Simmons’ arrest and conviction, defense attorney Joe Norwood said Wednesday.
Compensation, though, is likely years away, Norwood said and Simmons is currently living on donations while undergoing treatment for cancer that was detected after his release from prison.
“Glynn is having to live off of GoFundMe, that’s literally how the man is surviving right now, paying rent, buying food,” Norwood said. “Getting him compensation, and getting compensation is not for sure, is in the future and he has to sustain himself now.”
A delayed $175,000 for 50 years? Remind me to never go to Oklahoma.
Zero reason to ever go to OK.
I'm sure the people on the reservations are decent. Impoverished, but decent.
We have very lax medical marijuana laws, a dispensary on every corner, and cheap weed.
We sure do have a lot of willfully stupid people, though.
It would be nice if you'd amend those lax medical marijuana laws to allow us Texas residents in on the deal.
Nope. You guys have been telling us how much better you are since 1909. You get your own weed. 🤣
Good farming land.
Not really, just decent ranching land mainly. There's a reason the US was willing to briefly give it away to the Native Americans.
A while back I had a cousin living in Oklahoma. He had some troubles and was hanging out with some not great people. An acquaintance's gf/wife ended up dead and the guy pointed his finger at my cousin. He was held in jail charged with murder, but all his hearings kept getting kicked down the road. After a year they released him and told him to GTFO of the state and never return.
Which, to me, screams that they found evidence he didnt do it, but didnt want to invest money in a trial to prove his innocence, or on finding the actual suspect.
I've lived there, and it sucked ass. I ran away from that shit State
$175,000 for 50 years? He's 71 now so he went into prison at 21. That means he spent virtually his entire life in prison. He could have done so many things, but instead he needed to sit in a prison cell. All because he was wrongly convicted.
And because I'm a math geek and need to figure this stuff out, $175,000 over 50 years is $3,500 a year. If we calculate what he would have earned at the federal minimum wage over that time frame (ignoring bank account interest or inflation just to keep things simple), we'd get over $500,000.
They're giving him a third of what he should have earned at bare minimum. (And that ignores all the other horrible things involved with being wrongfully imprisoned for 50 years.)
Yeah. The sum they owe him should be a "whoops we fucked up badly, sorry. Take these 175k while we think about what you could have made if we didn't. It's just to get you started, there'll be more next month."
When you did your calculations did you factor in the change in minimum wage and inflation? I'm sure the state owes him more than $500k.
I didn't factor in inflation as I was trying to keep it quick and simple. I also didn't factor in any interest he might have received from a bank account. This was purely "he works minimum wage and stuffs all the cash he gets into a big jar - how much does he have after 50 years."
I was also using the federal minimum wage. Obviously, many states have higher minimum wages so he might have made more than the federal minimum wage had he been free to move to another state.
Of course, the $500,000 figure only accounts for money that he would have made. It doesn't include all the suffering he had to endure or the fact that the state basically ended his life at 21. He didn't get to live his life and his future life is going to be rough. Not only does he need to adjust to life out of prison, but he likely has nothing. It's not like many places are rushing to hire a 71 year old with no job experience for the last 50 years because they were in prison. The money he gets should at least be enough for him to comfortably retire.
This man likely does not have children or any close family left. He's probably very alone out here and I'd argue that he was better off in prison, as sad as it sounds. In prison he would have had a carr to look after him, guards that (on paper) have to keep him safe, three meals a day, and a life he's already used to. He literally has no experience on living on the outside as an adult and like no support system.
So the prosecutor is going to be held liable for stealing 50 years of this man's life, right?
Reminds me of that joke, what did the wrongfully convicted man, who spent 50 years in prison because a prosecutor hid exonerating evidence, get for Christmas? Cancer.
The world is a chaotic, horrid unforgiving place. Have fun while you can because any second now who the fuck knows what's going to happen to any of us.
I get what you're saying, but I've also seen similar sentiment used to justify cruelty, as if the unpredictable nature of existence somehow absolves people of actively contributing to the misery of others.
Prosecutor is probably dead of old age. And if thats the case, I vote we dig them up
Worked for a pope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod
Time to play a game: Without opening the article, guess Mr. Simmons' skin color.
You almost certainly guessed correctly.
"Your honor the defendents skin color was Guilty at the time."
I like to play this game when it comes to sex related crimes and politicians guessing their party affiliation and I'm almost never wrong.
If the state stole 50 years of my life and offered me 150k as an apology, I know what candles I'd be lighting.
Shit like this is Fucking disgusting.
I don’t understand why cases like this aren’t the only rationale needed to abolish the death penalty.
Also, that poor man - I hope he is able to live as happy a life as can be expected given the injustice that he endured.
Because death penalty supporters are okay with killing innocents if they get to feel retribution and kill someone, regardless of "justice".
No it's because it should only be used in the most cut and dry cases.
Cases like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Hitler, Putin, Stalin.
Killing someone because they killed one person or did some heinous thing once is not a good solution.
Killing someone who has shown they do not care about human life to the point of killing multiple people either directly or indirectly is completely morally sound.
All convictions are theoretically cut and dry. The legal system has proven again and again to be far too blunt an instrument to make the kind of distinction you're asking for. The death penalty offers no benefit beyond the satisfaction of revenge, and it inevitably leads to innocent people dying. It's an unconscionable tradeoff.
I'm not saying I'm in favour of the death penalty, but to play devil's advocate it must surely be cheaper for the state to execute a man than to jail him for 50 years?
Nope. Death penalty cases usually involve so many appeals they cost more.
https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/76th2011/ExhibitDocument/OpenExhibitDocument?exhibitId=17686&fileDownloadName=h041211ab501_pescetta.pdf
That source and basically every other study disagrees. It's much more expensive to execute someone than keep them incarcerated.
With just $175k? Not likely.
Or just paying attention to the awful current state of policing in the US.
State takes your freedom for the majority of your life on a mistake, the reparation is not even enough to buy a fucking house, and it has to wait years for it. If they wanted to make fun of him one last time, they should have just given him a "Get Well Soon" card for his cancer, that would have been less cruel.
Let's treat imprisonment of the innocent as if it were their job while they were in prison.
Since they can't ever leave they're always engaged to wait so need to be paid 24/7, which comes out to 232 hours a week after the overtime bump. Take that money, throw it in the market with an average 5% return and run the numbers
At 7.25 (current minimum wage) it'd be around 8 million.
Take the hourly rate of the median individual income, and it's 80 million.
The state apparently values an innocent person's freedom at 17 cents an hour.
Bastards could have done him the favor of just killing him. A life of suffering. Shame.
One more reason capital punishment should not be allowed.
I have no words...
Edit: It always amazes me when small government advocates who believe government is fundamentally incompetent rant and rave about the necessity and righteousness of government being able to death penalty you (or the "right" people)...
175k for that is really sad.
“Woopsie! Our bad lol”
Given how long he was in prison this is close to edging the death penalty in the slowest most painful way possible. Which is by keeping you incarcerated until the day you die...
I'd take the chair before spending 50 years in prison, especially if I didn't even do anything.
now imagine he was executed for it. you can free a man after 50 years, but you can't revive him.
That sum is way too low, way too late and way too uncertain. What a fucking shame. He should spend the rest of his life in luxury with every wish fulfilled without even thinking about it. What a fucking shame!
Holy crap. In this situation i would just burn the courthouse down.
Was he found innocent based on the new evidence or was he found innocent by default after the D.A. declined to retry him?
I saw that, but I don't think it answers my question.
I'm wondering if the evidence that was not turned over was something that proved it couldn't have been him. If it's something that exonerated him, then I could see him being declared innocent. Usually the ruling is "not guilty" which I would take as "unable to prove it was him," but still leaves room that he could have done it.
To me this sounds like someone intentionally fucked the wrong man, hiding what would prove his innocence just to get the conviction.
Not at all. And the term would technically be "not guilty," as there is no such thing as "innocence" in our judgey-McJudgerson judicial system.