Exonerated after 48 years in prison, now he fights Stage 4 cancer
For 48 years, one month and 18 days, Glynn Simmons was trapped in an undeserved hell.
Simmons was convicted and initially sentenced to the death penalty for a murder he always insisted he did not commit. By the time the state of Oklahoma conceded that he’d not gotten a fair trial and there wasn’t enough evidence to retry him, he was approaching 71, a worndown man beset by a string of health issues, with a son and grandchildren he hoped to finally get to know outside of prison walls.
But nearly four months after being assured of his freedom, Simmons is running out of time.
The man who holds the grim record of longest wrongful-conviction case in U.S. history has Stage 4 colon cancer, which at this point offers him only a minimal chance of surviving the next five years. He should be due $175,000 in compensation from the state under Oklahoma’s tort claim law — the equivalent of $3,645 for each year he was wrongfully imprisoned — but has yet to see a penny and is relying on a Gofundme effort to help cover his living expenses and medical bills.
“He can’t get a job now,” says Joe Norwood, one of his attorneys. “He has to get hooked up to a chemo machine every two weeks.”
The failures that for decades defined, constrained and robbed Simmons’s life — racial bias, inadequate representation, police misconduct — are familiar ones in sagas such as his.
Simmons and another Black man were convicted of capital murder for the 1974 killing of a young White woman at a liquor store in Edmond, Okla., despite no physical evidence linking them to the crime scene and multiple witnesses insisting Simmons was in Louisiana on the night of the shooting. The case hinged on the testimony of an 18-year-old eyewitness, who identified both in a lineup despite telling police she did not remember much and only saw the gunmen for a split second.
And the aftermath of Simmons’s release is not unfamiliar either: He is caught between the state setting him free and making up for its error, a limbo that, to his supporters, seems all the more cruel because of his cancer.
“I believe the compensation will come someday,” he says, “but I don’t know if I have the luxury of time.”
His cause cleared a critical hurdle on Tuesday when a judge officially declared him innocent. “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,” District Judge Amy Palumbo said in her ruling.
Despite the pronouncement, his prospects are uncertain: The district attorney responsible for his vacated conviction subsequently opposed an innocence claim, and it’s unclear how Oklahoma’s attorney general will decide on the tort claim. His lawyer worries that the state’s check could take anywhere from a couple months to two years to arrive.
For now, Simmons’s life on the outside continues as a series of milestones: attending his first NBA game, visiting the zoo for the first time and, on Monday, celebrating his first Christmas with lights and decorations in nearly half a century. He’s not sure of all the holiday plans, just that he’ll at last be with family.
As for the new year? “I haven’t even looked that far ahead,” he says.
The man smiles big and laughs easily these days. Yet just below the surface, he remains infuriated by a legal system and a state that he says still hasn’t apologized to him for wrongfully taking away more than two-thirds of his life — and then, if he’s lucky, offering him less than $4,000 for every year.
“What’s been done can’t be undone,” Simmons allowed after his hearing last week. “But there can be accountability.”
Months of day-long chemotherapy sessions have weakened Simmons, but he puts on a happy face while out for lunch. Sitting next to him at the restaurant is his son, Glenn Smith, 52. The two banter, with Simmons saying how he loves his son’s cooking and puts up with his occasional snoring.
He has been living with colon cancer since 2021. He underwent surgery, but the following year, prison doctors found a lesion on his liver. Simmons says it went untreated as his facility, like others across the country, grappled with the pandemic and the rapid, deadly spread of covid. A spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment.
“I didn’t get no treatment until I got out of prison,” Simmons says.
For Kim T. Cole, a Dallas attorney advising him in a parallel process for federal compensation, his case is a personal one. Simmons had befriended Cole’s brother when he was incarcerated in the 1990s.
“It’s great that he’s out, but he lost almost 50 years of his life, and now he’s terminally ill,” she says. What happened to him is “a travesty.”
Her criticism extends to Oklahoma’s wrongful-conviction compensation law, which has come under increasing scrutiny from lawmakers. Its maximum compensation of $175,000 lags far behind neighboring states; Texas and Kansas, for example, give $80,000 and $50,000, respectively, for each year of a wrongful conviction.
The Oklahoma House introduced a bill this year to eliminate the current cap and award wrongfully convicted individuals $50,000 for each year behind bars. It’s unclear whether Simmons would be able to amend his claim for compensation should the measure become law.
For now he’s back in Oklahoma City, trying to figure out how to survive his disease and support himself. His Gofundme had limped along, far shy of its initial $50,000 goal, until last week’s headlines about his innocence. Two days later, contributions topped $230,000 — with one anonymous donor giving $30,000. The goal was increased tenfold.
“Sometimes I may be physically weak,” he says, “but my faith is always strong.
“There is life after prison,” Simmons says, “and there is a good life after prison.”