Piers Morgan Uncensored - "I Spent 48 Years In Prison For A Murder I Didn’t Commit"

Episode Date: March 10, 2024

At the age of 21, Glynn Simmons was jailed for 48 years for a murder he didn't commit. He speaks to Piers about his incarceration and fight for justice. YouTube: @PiersMorganUncensored X: @PiersUncensored TikTok: @piersmorganuncensored Insta: @piersmorganuncensored Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the age of just 21, Glenn Simmons agreed to take part in a police lineup. He didn't even know he had the right to refuse. It was the first in a shocking chain of events that saw him jailed for the next 48 years for a murder he didn't commit. Glenn Simmons was convicted of shooting two Edmund women during a liquor store robbery in 1974. In a nearly 50-year fight for justice is over. The longest wrongful sentence ever in the U.S. Nobody in American history has spent long. behind bars only to be completely exonerated.

It's like being born again, you know. You were sentenced to death in the electric chair. Sometime insanity sits and became a refuge at times, you know. I'm pissed. I'm still pissed, but this pissed, you know, it's energy. You know, I'm pissed off enough to make something right. What was the best and worst thing about the world that you found 50 years later? I found nothing bad. Yeah, this gets better for me. Now finally he's free and Glenn Simmons joins Unsensitive.

Well Mr. Simmons first of all, this is one of the most extraordinary miscarriages of justice I think I've ever read about. I've interviewed many, many people who've been in another prison in my career. Nothing quite like yours. And what shines through about your story is that never once did you waver and take the easy option of saying, all right, I did it, I'm sorry, let me out, which you could have done. You never did that. You just resolutely stood by the fact that you were an innocent man and eventually 48 years of incarceration later, you finally got out.

And that's an amazing testament to you and your strength of character. Thank you. Thank you, Pierce. Yeah, being innocent, it never crossed my mind to. copped something I didn't do you know it crossed my mind after 48 years after 45 years in you know I thought about it but I couldn't even fake it you know how did I know that would have been sort of uh how did it freedom taste how did it smell when you finally came out of prison that moment when you inhaled free air again well uh it's like being born again you know like I got imagine I don't know how it is coming out of the womb but it was sort of

like, you know, being born again, you know. But I take it all in stride and walk into it with confidence because I seen it, I visualized, I dreamed about it, I prayed on it and this is what it, you know, just the manifestation of it. I want to take you back, Glenn, to where it all started. You were just 21 years old. You had no criminal record.

And you were in Oklahoma, you'd been there a few days. You were resting on suspicion of robbery, one you hadn't committed. The police had no apparent reason to pick you up that day in 1975. The robbery victim didn't even recognize you. You were told you were free to leave, but just as you were about to be released, the police said they were short of men for a police lineup

for something else and asked you to take part. And you didn't know it was within your rights to refuse, and your mother had taught you the importance of respecting officialdom, and so you did what you thought was. your duty and you took part in a lineup and that decision to do that was to end up costing your liberty for five decades yeah yes uh yes i mean i didn't know nothing else to do that's i was raised you know i had never had no experience with the criminal justice system and nobody in their right mind would think that the uh the officers would you know do what they did after the witness

has identified the perpetrator, you know, to turn around it was. I didn't believe that until 20 years later when I was able to obtain documents to show the deception was deliberate, you know. You took part of the lineup where you were supposedly identified as having been involved in the murder of a 30-year-old liquor store worker Carolyn Sue Rogers, who'd been shot in the head during a robbery. And along with somebody else, Dan Roberts, convicted and sentenced to death, as it termed, that later commuted to life imprisonment.

But it's the fact that you're nothing to do with this crime. You've been pulled in to be in a police lineup. You're completely innocent. It's nothing to do with you. You get misidentified and your life just very quickly spirals into a trial, imprisonment, potential execution. What are you thinking as this is all happening to you? I'm thinking this is a mistake and pretty soon it will be resolved and I had faith, you know, and all my teachings and stuff about, you know, this stone, you know, they'll get it right. And I kept that belief for long time, you know, for years and years, you know, they'll get it right. Until I discovered that what had happened was no, what you call a miscarriage of justice or a simple mistake. It was deliberate. through and through.

It was deliberate act, you know, that's, you know. I mean, the most scandalous part of many scandals in this story is that at the preliminary hearing, and this is evidence that wasn't given to the defense, the prosecution brought forward an 18-year-old Belinda Brown as an identification witness. Now, she'd been a customer in the liquor store. She'd been shot in the head too during the robbery.

And when interviewed after coming out of hospital, she told the detective sergeant, Anthony Garrett, my mind is all jumbled up because of the brain injury she suffered. This was never disclosed to your defense. And at the trial, she identified Roberts as the shooter and you as the accomplice. But they knew the detectives that she had said her mind was jumbled because of the brain injury she'd had from being shot. And there was a one-page document that showed that Brown's identity.

you and Robertson in the lineup. Those are the two guys identified of the lineup. Identify them again. Now, she told the court. But it later emerged. She had never identified you in the lineup. So at every stage of this woman's evidence from the initial incident right through to the supposed lineup to the court and everything,

everything about this was wrong. And yet your defense would deprive the information, which I would have thought would have exonerated. I would like to clear up a few facts about the witness. Yeah. And the witness

was deceived also. Just like in my wildest imagination and the prosecutors wild imagine, we never thought that the officers did what they did. For what? What reason? You know, had Belinda Brown identified number six in the lineup.

She never did identify me or Don Robbins in the lineup. Belinda Brown got shot in the head, and after she got shot in the head for five weeks, she went through six or seven lineups. And in those six or seven lineups, she never did identify the perpetrator. What she said was, if you read the preliminary hearing transcripts,

what she said was, I identified an eye or a nose or a mouth that resembled the perpetrator. She never did identify the perpetrator. However, five weeks later, when she got the court, me and my co-defendants sitting at the defense table, the only two black guys in the whole courtroom, except for my attorney, and she knew she had got it right. See, that's what I had been trying to tell my attorneys for years. Alternatives are trained by instinct.

They are trained to discredit the witness. Their first objective is to discredit the witness. So I had to try and convince these attorneys to give this witness the benefit of the a doubt. But if you give the witness the benefit of the doubt, you left nothing with police conspiracy cover up. And nobody didn't want to go down that road for years and years. They wanted to keep causing a miscarriage of justice or a mistake when actually it wasn't. It was deliberate. It wasn't about me. It was about, it wasn't about me personally. It was about clearing this case, solving this unsolved case that there was under a whole lot of pressure

for to get resolved for a whole month. If you look at the newspaper clippings of that month of 1975, every day there's an article in the newspaper about how incompetent the police is and they can't solve this case and they come into a day or then, and they was desperate to solve this case. Now, the guy that Belinda Brown picked out of the lineup,

they already had him on the double homicide, him and his brother on the double homicide. But they still got all these unanswered questions in these unsolved murder cases in Oklahoma City. Here I am, you know. Easy. Give it to him and him, you know. And you faced an all-white jury.

Do you think that race played a part in their decision-making? Absolutely. Race pays apart in the whole criminal justice system. I mean, look at it. I mean, we are, we are, will you turn this on for me? Yeah. We are, in Oklahoma, we are like 8% of the state's population, yet we like 40% of the prison population.

Yeah, I mean talking to the black folks, you know, people of color. Absolutely race played an issue. A white lady got killed in Edmond, Oklahoma, a sundown town, what they called in America sundown time mean get out of town before sundown, you know. And one got killed, one got shot, two black guys. wasn't even allowed to live in Oklahoma, I mean, in Edmund in 1975. Of course, race played a part, played a big, big part all the way through, and still does. When you were convicted, Glenn, your mother screamed loudly in the courtroom, a piercing scream.

Is that because she knew that you were an innocent man? Yes. Yes, my mother knew better than anybody that I was innocent because I was with her. You know, that night, what they said? The murder went down. I was with my mom and a few of my friends. Yeah, but this is my mother. You know, they're sitting here talking about,

kill her son by electrocution, you know, for something he didn't do. You know, of course, you know, yeah, it was a piercing scream and it changed everything my outlook on, you know, what was really going down. You were sentenced to death in the electric chair. That was later commuted after two years, but you were put in solitary confinement

and you were thinking that at any moment you could be executed for a crime you didn't commit. You were an innocent man. You had no criminal record until this moment. What went through your mind glim when you were in solitary for all that time? Well, it was the first year on that role. still kind of believing in the system that it's going to, you know, in a couple years,

they'll get this right, you know. I was young. When you're young, you got these outlooks of invincibility, so, you know, they're killing me on that way. It didn't generate the fear and the trauma that it did later, you know. You kind of find a way to adjust, you know. You take flight and fantasies. and sometimes insanity sits in and, you know,

it became a refuge at times, you know. Yeah, I found that very interesting. You gave an interview about having mental illness episodes and that in a way you were pleased you did because it allowed you to escape the reality of what you were going through for the period of time that you had the episode. Yeah.

one of your countrymen, George Michaels, careless whispers, he got a lyric in that he said, to the hearts and minds, ignorance is kind. There's no comfort in the truth, you know. You remember that? Yeah. And it was, yeah, it was accurate, you know. Yeah, we take flight sometime and bouts of insanity do sit in.

As I sit here and talk to you, you know, after 48 years, five months and 13 days of incarceration, it would be ludicrous to think that I don't have mental health issues. You know, after being incarcerated all those years for a crime I didn't commit. I have mental health issues that haven't been given a name. You know, what saves me is that I recognize it first and confront it before, you know, the so-called therapist recognize it and confronted, you know? You were kept in a cell alone, 24 hours of it. a day allowed out just three times a week for 15 minutes to shower. I mean, that's an extraordinarily

tough condition to be incarcerated where you're just, it's just you and you're thinking you're going to be executed. Yeah, you have time to grow up. You're mature real fast, you know. I went to, I went to that row. I dropped out of school like in eight grades, all the functional illiterates. know, but out of desperation to survive, to live, you know, you come to a, I started reading, I started writing, taught myself to read and write, which was a salvation for me, because for me reading was like fleeing, you know. You could read a book and flee. And writing, you know, you write your way up out or you fight back. So, you know, these mechanisms fight a flight that was there, you know, I learned how to use them.

You come from a very religious family who stood by you, but how important was religion, faith in God, to surviving this? Well, me and God didn't have many, many battles, you know? Of course, he always wins, you know, but I have been Christian, I've been Muslim, I've been Buddhist, I've been Israel, Hebrew, Israelite, I've studied and taught many, many different religious in my quest to find peace or salvation or meaning, you know, to get some kind of meaning out of all of this. And in the end, I came to find out it was all one. It wasn't different, no difference than none of them.

It was about, you know, peace and salvation, you know. So religious played a good part, you know. In the early stages. Always came back, you know. Yeah. In the early stages, Glyn, you were quite rebellious because you were angry. You knew you were innocent. And you thought, well, why should I have to comply?

You were verbally rebellious. You were occasionally violent in your rebellion. And when you were moved to a minimum security jail, you escaped. The fence was two foot high. You just walked away. You were gone for three weeks. I mean, that feeling when you were on the run, did you feel a sense of liberty? Did you feel, well, I'm going to get called at some stage.

I'm going to enjoy it? What was your mindset when you were on the run? No, I didn't escape just to be free. I escaped with intentions of trying to get this murder case up off of me. That was my intentions of escaping. I always knew you can't run for life, you know. So I gave it 10 years. Like three years on that road, 10 years of filing legal, you know,

redress and all disappointments after 10 years they sent me to minimum security and uh yeah it was like hear your chance take it or leave it you know three-fitting high three-foot high fence 10 years of incarceration for something you didn't do i mean what would you do what would anybody do you know it's only simple logic that i would leave you know you were caught after three weeks and given uh more years on your sentence that in your final like three decades I believe and correct me if the timeline is wrong you became calmer and you became more focused on clearing your name less rebellious more towing of the line but trying to clear your name and indeed help others who were in similar positions yes yes yes yes uh I don't know if I became karma or most strategic in my efforts to get out

Because when you got a sentence like I had, you know, you got very few options, like four options. And I never stopped exercising them options, you know. You could make parole, you get your case overturned, you can escape, or you can die. It's four options. And I was bound to determine, you know, dying going to take care of yourself, you know. I was bound and determined to exercise those options until I wasn't able to no more. And, yeah, yeah, it's a couple of escapes, attempted escape, and many, many, many legal appeals, and many, many parole ball appearances, you know, no victories after all them years, you know.

Never stopped fighting it. I was supposed to give up a long time ago, you know. Been had the hope and, you know, knocked out of me so many times. when I thought I was going to be free and looked at real promising and then somebody said no you know incredible you

in 1995 the trial prosecutor Robert Midfeld wrote to the Oklahoma pardon and parole board saying the case, your case had troubled him for 20 years because the evidence was so thin and then in 1996 you hired a private investigator

who discovered a missing police report that the original witness Belinda Brown that we were talking about earlier had stated that the man she identified as Simmons was six foot tall and weighed 200 pounds

200 pounds whereas very different to you right yeah yeah I'm 5 880 pounds now but at the time I was 5 850 pounds you know and what was what was significant was you didn't need new evidence to prove your innocence that the apportioned

thing about your case was the evidence was there all the time. And you just had to find someone, somewhere, a lawyer somewhere, who could get that evidence, which was sitting there and get you out of prison. How did that eventually happen, Glenn? I came into some money in 95, and if you remember, that was during the time of the OJ trial. Yeah. Everybody remember Johnny Cochran. I watched Johnny Cochran give a news in a news, a news, and a newsman. reporter interview and he was telling these reporters about when a crime happened, the first detective or the first police on the scene began to write investigative reports. And if the perpetrator is not apprehended, one day, two day, three months, four months later,

but every day there's an investigative report being wrote because it's an ongoing investigation. And so I knew then, said, okay, what I need is a private investigator. I can't remember where I got the guy's reference from his name was Charles Nobles. And I wrote him a letter and told him about my case. And he came down to McAllis. I was in McCallis in Maximum Security at the time. And he came down and we sat on and we talked. And I gave him a list of what I was looking for.

I was trying to get preliminary hearing transcripts, probable cause affidavits. and, you know, calls for arrest affidavit. I couldn't, you know, I could never get it after following through the court. So I paid him to go get that. And he came back with the treasure trolls of all kind of stuff that nobody had never seen, you know, had been stuck in the archives in the courthouse.

And when he came back and he brought me all of that stuff, I immediately hired a law firm to farm a post-conviction and everything. Everything was born. They never looked at the merits of it because of procedural defaults. I stayed in prison 27 years long after I discovered all this. Incredible. Because no judge, no parole,

board, nobody would look at the merits of the case because I was bored because of previous appeals that I had made and I didn't include all this in previous appeals. And when was the big breakthrough, Glenn, where finally you realized you were gonna get exonerated? In April. In April,

last year, April 19th, I had an evidentiary hearing. And I knew that all I ever needed to do was get back to full judge, but get back in court. And the first time I ever got back in court, I was, you know, they declared me, you know, vacated the centers. I knew they couldn't proceed. The district attorney didn't have nothing. They didn't have nothing in 75 and they show didn't have nothing in 2000 and in 23. you know.

And on September the 12th, 2023, the Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Ben announced they were dropping all the charges against you, complete and utter exoneration. What did that moment feel like? Did it feel joyous? Did it feel relief? Did you feel angry? How did you feel in that moment?

They dropped the charge. Well, they dropped the charges in October, vacated my sentence in October. But I just, I wasn't never satisfied with being exonerated. So we filed an amendment and the judge declared me actually innocent instead of exonerated. There's a difference. You know, and she said I was actually innocent, which I was. I was actual innocent.

And how did you feel, Glyn, when you heard it? Yeah, yeah, it was. What was your emotion when you, when you heard? I was extremely exhilarated. It's like a big weight had been lifted, you know? Like carry a big load around for a long time when you put it down, you just feel like you feel like you want to float, you know. That's what the feeling was like for me that day.

Incredibly, having spent 48 years in prison for a crime you never committed, as you were finally being released, you found out you had stage four liver cancer, cancer, which is obviously incredibly serious conditions. This was like a hammer blow to you. But remarkably, you've made really good progress with it, I understand. Yes, yes. Very good progress. You know, they label it from stage four, from one to four.

Well, it's no numbers now. They consider in surgery to remove the last pieces before it become too microscopic to see. But listen, let me show. share this with you, peers, and your audience. This thing with me is not just about my resilience and tenacity. This thing with me is about manifestation, you know, and the manifestation of my liberation and the manifestation of the restoration of my health, it's all on the same, you know, it's all on the same thing. And people wonder how I made the adjustment and how I came back so easily from what had happened. Well, I'm still not back, but I'm into, I'm into another kind of, I guess

you would call it metaphysical, you know, but my belief carried me through. I think you didn't heard it before the Messiah said, why more of the things I do when you can do even greater? And when you consider the things that he was doing, and this guy said, you know, you can do even greater. So I stopped everything I thought I knew and thought at all the beliefs I thought I had to decipher. What is the Messiah you're talking about? How can we do greater? And he was walking the water and making the blinds, you know. And so I kind of figured out, and he was talking about a process. There's no instant healing. You know, it's a process, you know? And I figured out the process and the same process as, you know, kept me grounded and put within me, you know,

this attitude of gratitude that keep bringing goodness to me you know and every day is get better and better you know do you wish there's a stir to tell more than just huh i was going to ask you glim whether you feel very sad that your mother was not still alive to see you come out of prison that's that's my that's my that's the thing when i'm riding down the highway like doing this interview with you know that's the thing that pup make me pause with my mom the one who put all effort in to see me free, you know, not here to enjoy it. But I know that she is, you know, I believe that, you know, it's all right, you know, it's all right.

She would be happy. You know, I'm just trying to stay happy. That's what it is. You have a son, Glenn, and you have three grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren. No, I got, yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right. How easy has it been to get back into family life for you? I've always been about family.

Incarcerated, I had sons, you know, a bunch of sons that I, you know, kind of took under my wing and mentored. And I think it was because of a longing to, you know, raise my son that I, you know, took on that. But, yeah, I'm good with family. Families, they all lack, you know. And it's the thrill of my life to be with my great-grandkids, you know, because I've always been about generational stuff, you know.

You're suing the police Beautiful great grandkids Yeah, it must be wonderful for you And you're suing the police for compensation Understandably And you want hundreds of millions of dollars But not for you to go and spend on fancy things You've made it clear what you want to do

Is to spend it to help people Who come out of prison to start new lives Which is an extraordinarily laudable thing For you to be doing Well, I sit in this prison for years and years watching people, you know, come and go. And I'm not just talking about career criminals. I had some friends who had college degrees and was real good guys, real intentions.

They got out and come back sometime, you know, two or three times. So, you know, I couldn't figure out. I couldn't get out. You know, I couldn't get. I was trying. But these guys would get out and come back. It just baffled me. So it inspired me to do an in-depth stuff.

study on recidivism, the cause to affect how to curtail it, you know. And I come to understand that this, too, is deliberate. You know, if you've got figures like 70% recidivism, if 100 guys get out today within six to 18 months, seven of them will be back. And this figure stays steady for years and years. So I'm like, somebody got their hand on the scale, you know, for these as long as to stay this, this long, you know. And so I started figuring out, okay, what's needed was a wraparound support system within the first six to 18 months that drew out. And so I figured out how to do that, you know, and that's what I'm, that's what I dedicated

myself to coming out. I can't, I'm not, I don't have the platform to help in the beginning, in the front end, to stop from going in, you know, but on coming out, that's, that really matters, you know, how to make the adjustment, you know. And, Glenn, you had a GoFund me page, which has raised $350,000. And that's been helping you, obviously, enormously. But I guess money, you know, money is one thing

and can obviously be very helpful to you. But liberty is another thing altogether. To have had your liberty taken away for nearly 50 years for something you didn't do. You know, I remember famously, obviously Nelson Mandela coming out after nearly three decades and showing the same kind of remarkable eloquence and poise that you're showing.

But inside, what do you feel? I mean, do you feel a raging anger about what happened to you, the loss of your freedom for all those years? Or how would you categorize your emotions inside? Oh. I mean, put it to you like this. I've got a whole lot of bitterness, a whole lot of anger, hatred, but it's all energy. I learned a long time ago how to channel that energy.

You know, if I let it do what it do, then I'm a dead man, you know, inside and out. That kind of bitterness and rage and hatred. But I learned how to channel that energy into a positive, you know, to turn it into something. It's energy. Energy is energy. It's how you got it, how you focus it. So yeah, don't think for a minute that I don't have anger and bitterness and stuff. It's only logical that I do with all them defeats for something I to do, you know.

It mess with me spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, that's what I say. I got mental health issues that haven't been given the name. You know, but what my awareness of it, you know, that's what keeps me saying and keep me from, you know, going raven mad. Yeah, I'm pissed. I'm still pissed, but this pissed, you know, it's energy. You know, I'm pissed off enough to make something right. You know, I'm just pissed off not just to scream about it, you know. And I've always been, well, if you've got a problem, let's solve it.

You know, don't come to me with the problem if you ain't got an inkling of a solution. You're just venting, you know? And, Glenn, when you came out, the world must have changed so dramatically on the outside. What was the best and worst thing about the world that you found 50 years later? I haven't found nothing bad yet. It's better for me every day. Like I say, I'm steeped in this attitude of gratitude, you know. I can't have found nothing bad yet, you know.

But I know there's full season and every year, and there's going to be a bad season coming. But I'm built for this, the good and the bad, you know. Was there one book, Glenn, when you learned to read and you read books and things, was the one book that you read in prison, which really helped you? In particular? Yeah.

Oh, sure. There wasn't no one book in particular. I read everything from Atlas drugs to Mobig Dick to Iliads you know Homer now it wasn't no one particular book that I could even I don't know what do you want to achieve now now you've now you've got your freedom what do you most want to achieve now with the rest of your life yeah my mom if this is my last days I'm gonna make making my best days, you know. I'm going to enjoy this.

But what I want to do, everybody want to live forever. And the way you do that is you establish something. So I'm all about some generational wealth. I didn't pay the price enough for me, my son, my great-grandkids, you know, where they shouldn't have to pay this. I want some legislation passed, you know, where you won't have to, an innocent man don't have to do this, you know, make some, we got to have to do this, you know, make some, we got to rethink how we do this, you know. If I could make some, that would be my legacy, some changes

in criminal justice reform, you know. Yeah. Glenn Simmons. What could be done. Yeah. It's an amazing journey you've been on, an incredible story. It made me feel enrage reading it. And to see you now and to see you enjoying your freedom so much, but also being so eloquent about it, being so thoughtful. really about what you've been through. I don't know if I could have had your calmness, the way you talk about this, but it's incredibly impressive.

And I want to wish you all the very best for your life and hope that you enjoy it as much as I'm sure you will and that you do get the legacy that you're after, which is to try and stop other people ever being put in your position. You know, thank you. Thank you, Pierce, Margaret. I want to say you've been one of my favorite commentators, even when you was on CNN. I never thought I'd be having an interview,

with the famous Pierce Morgan. So thank you for inviting me. I appreciate that. Well, you know, the honor is all mine, genuinely. You know, you are a piece of American history. You're the longest serving imprisoned inmate to be exonerated and declared an innocent man in the history of your country. And that makes you a remarkable part of American history,

a remarkably shameful part of American history. But you, sir, are a gentleman. And it's been an honor, honestly. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good day. God bless you.

And you. All the best good. Enjoy your freedom. Okay. Thanks, Paris.