Glynn Ray Simmons, 71, will receive the settlement following a lawsuit against the city of Edmond, a suburb of Oklahoma City.
The Edmond City Council approved the compensation on Monday, August 12, as reported by the Associated Press.
Simmons was convicted in 1975 for the murder of Carolyn Rogers, a liquor store clerk, during a robbery the previous year. He contended that police had falsified their reports and that the prosecution had withheld evidence. Simmons claimed he was actually in Louisiana at the time of the crime.
Originally sentenced to death, Simmons’ sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment following a 1977 Supreme Court ruling on capital punishment. In July 2023, a judge vacated his conviction and ordered a new trial.
By September, the Oklahoma County District Attorney Vickie Behenna decided against retrying the case due to a lack of physical evidence. Simmons was officially exonerated in December 2023 and received $175,000 from the state for his wrongful conviction.
Simmons, who served more than 48 years in prison, holds the record for the longest incarceration of any exoneree according to The National Registry of Exonerations.
Attorney Elizabeth Wang stated, “Mr. Simmons 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.”
