$7.15 Million for Oklahoma Prisoner Exonerated After Nearly 50 Years
by Anthony W. Accurso
An Oklahoma prisoner who was exonerated after nearly 50 years in prison has received over $7 million in compensation so far. Glynn Ray Simmons, 71, now holds the dubious distinction of serving more time in prison for a crime he didn’t commit than anyone else in the country.
On December 30, 1974, Simmons, then 22, was shooting pool with friends in Harvey, Louisiana, while 700 miles away, two men robbed a liquor store in Edmond, Oklahoma. Store clerk Carolyn Sue Rogers, 30, was shot and killed by the robbers as she picked up a phone; customer Belinda Brown, 18, was also shot but survived.
Five weeks later, when police investigating a series of similar robberies found the bodies of two men in a rural area not far away, they got a confession from the killer, Leonard Patterson. Learning he had been at a party at the Oklahoma City home of Dorothy Norris on January 19, 1975, they rounded up others who’d also been in attendance—including Don Roberts, 21, who was Patterson’s brother-in-law, and Simmons, who was Norris’ nephew; he had moved to Oklahoma to take a job and was staying with her.
Brown identified her assailants as Simmons and Roberts. Simmons’ alibi—that he’d been in Louisiana during the robbery and murder—was confirmed by four witnesses. Roberts’ sister, Doris Frazier, testified that he was at her Texas home that night. Nevertheless, Simmons and Roberts were convicted of Rogers’ murder and sentenced to death. The sentences were commuted to life in prison by the state Supreme Court in 1976, to comport with a recent decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that found the death penalty unconstitutional. Although that ruling was later reversed, Simmons and Roberts remained in prison and were not returned to death row.
After two unsuccessful appeals in the 1990s, lawyers for Simmons filed a renewed habeas corpus petition in 2023, based on a recently discovered case file from the City of Edmond that showed his alibi was never investigated.
Other details withheld from the jury: that Brown had identified four other men besides Simmons and Roberts during eight lineups; that her initial physical description of the assailants given to police bore little resemblance to them; and that she in fact never identified them before seeing them in court during trial.
Coincidentally, newly elected Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna was also former head of the Oklahoma Innocence Project. In April 2023, she filed a motion to vacate Simmons’ conviction. The state district court approved the motion and released him in July 2023, after which Behenna decided not to retry him “because there is no longer physical evidence against Simmons.” The court certified his innocence the following December.
Before his release, Simmons served 48 years, one month and 18 days, longer than any other U.S. prisoner who has been exonerated, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. He sued the state, but even with a declaration of actual innocence from the court, he was awarded just $175,000, the maximum amount available under 51 Okl.St.Ann. § 154. Simmons called that “bullshit,” noting that private prison operator CoreCivic was paid far more to hold him the last 22 of years of his wrongful incarceration; at the state’s agreed-upon $48 per diem, that totaled over $385,000.
Simmons also sued the City of Edmond and its former Det. Anthony David Garrett; now dead, Garrett led the investigation into the liquor store robbery and murder that wrongly identified Simmons. The city council voted on August 12, 2024, to approve a $7.15 million settlement. Simmons’ Oklahoma City attorney, Elizabeth Wang with Loevy & Loevy, said that he “spent a tragic amount of time incarcerated for a crime he did not commit.”
“Although he will never get that time back, this settlement with Edmond will allow him to move forward,” she added.
Simmons’ claims are still pending against Oklahoma City and its Det. Claude Shobert, who was also instrumental in the investigation that wrongly pinned the murder on him. PLN will update developments as they are available. In addition to attorneys from Loevy & Loevy, he is represented by attorneys John W. Coyle III of Coyle Law Firm, P.C. in Oklahoma City and Joseph M. Norwood of Norwood Law Firm PC in Tulsa. See: Simmons v. Oklahoma City, USDC (W.D. Okla.), Case No. 5:24-cv-00097.
Roberts, who was paroled in 2008, is also represented by Norwood, who filed a request with the District Attorney to vacate Roberts’ conviction, too. But Behenna turned that down in June 2024.
Additional sources: CBS News, KFOR, Oklahoman, Slate, USA Today
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