Glynn Simmons, a Black man from Oklahoma who was wrongfully convicted of murder 50 years ago and served the longest recorded falsely-ordered sentence, will be granted a $7.15 million settlement issued by Oklahoma City, his lawyers said this week.
Simmons, 71, was found guilty of the fatal 1974 Edmond shooting of store clerk Carolyn Sue Rogers during a robbery at a liquor store and spent 48 years, five months, and 18 days, wrongfully incarcerated until Oklahoma County Judge Amy Palumbo ordered him to be released in 2023, determining he was “actually innocent” later in the year.
His legal team argues that late Edmond detective Sgt. Anthony “Tony” Garrett and retired Oklahoma City detective Claude Shobert hid evidence that would have proven Simmons’ innocence when the case was initially being investigated. Attorneys representing Simmons also allege that the investigators falsified reports of a witness who had survived the robbery identifying Simmons in a line-up.
Meanwhile, Don Roberts, who was also convicted of Rogers’ murder, has been on parole since 2008 after serving thirty years while his conviction still stands. However, he has said he hopes to eventually see a determination of his innocence on the same grounds as Simmons. The two men were both initially sentenced to death row before a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court ruling caused their sentence to be modified to life in prison.
The Edmond City Council approved Simmons’ settlement on Monday after he filed a lawsuit in federal court earlier this year against Garrett and Shobert, and the former investigators’ respective cities. The settlement only resolves the reported actions of Garrett and the city of Edmond, while a resolution of the reported actions committed by Shobert and Oklahoma City is still pending. Both Simmons and Roberts have asserted their wrongful convictions are significantly tied to them being Black men.
“Race does play a big part in the criminal justice system, if you’ve read the statistics you’ll see Black folks in Oklahoma are 8% of the state population, but we’re 44% of the prison population, so the numbers don’t add up,” Simmons said last year when he was exonerated. “When we talk about justice you have to also consider race in the issue, it’s always been the issue, and it was one of the issues in why I got convicted. Race had a whole lot to do with it, and it always has.”
According to the University of Michigan Law School’s National Registry of Exonerations, Simmons is the longest-served wrongfully convicted man in United States history. He is also expected to receive $175,000 as compensation from the state of Oklahoma in response to a tort claim filed earlier this year.
In late June of this summer, Simmons opened Free-Man’s Food Truck in Oklahoma City, fulfilling his wish of opening a small business and sharing his love of food with the community. He opened the truck with a friend from the inside, Andre Armstrong, who did 31 years in state prison and is now running the mobile kitchen.
When contacted Tuesday afternoon by The Oklahoman, part of the USA TODAY Network, Simmons reiterated the comments of his counsel, adding that, while it may appear that the federal case is moving quickly, the timeline did not compare to the 48 years he spent wrongfully incarcerated.
“But I give all praise to the Lord,” Simmons said. “God is good to me.”
When Simmons was exonerated last year, he maintained that he wished to stay involved in social justice reform, asserting the issue of racially-prejudiced, wrongful convictions leaves many men still in jail without the resources or legal assistance needed to prove their innocence, leaving them subject to an imbalanced system.
