The City of Edmond, Oklahoma, will pay Glynn Ray Simmons, who spent almost 50 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, 7.15 million dollars in a settlement reached earlier this month, the National Registry of Exonerations reports. This settlement follows the state’s compensation of $175,000 in June.
Simmons was 22 when he and Don Roberts were convicted and sentenced to death in Oklahoma in 1975 for the murder of Carolyn Sue Rogers. After a U.S. Supreme Court decision, both men were resentenced to life in 1977. Roberts was released in 2008, but Simmons remained imprisoned for the next 46 years.
In April 2023, Oklahoma County District Court Attorney Vicki Behenna asked the court to vacate Simmons’ conviction and sentence “due to a potential Brady violation uncovered during a thorough review of the case in preparation for an evidentiary hearing.”
And in July 2023, after Oklahoma County District Court Judge Amy Palumbo held a status hearing, she vacated Simmons’ conviction and sentence, ordered a new trial, and he was released on bond.
At that time, Behenna said in a statement that she decided not to retry Simmons because her review of the case convinced her that the “state will not be able to meet its burden at trial and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Simmons was responsible for Ms. Rogers’ murder.” Among the “numerous reasons” she listed in explaining her decision, she noted that, according to the defense, an alternate suspect in the murder was identified in one of the lineups, which was never disclosed to the defense team or the jury.
“At the time of his release, no known person had spent more time incarcerated before being exonerated than Simmons,” the National Registry stated. He is now 71 years old and battling cancer, according to the Washington Post.
Two hundred people sentenced to death have been exonerated in the U.S. since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.