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Oklahoma City approves $7 million settlement

Glynn Simmons, who served the longest known wrongful conviction prison sentence, settled with Edmond, Oklahoma, for $7.15 million, his lawyers said.

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OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma city has agreed to pay $7.15 million to Glynn Simmons, the defendant who served nearly 50 years in Oklahoma's prison for a murder he didn't commit, his attorneys said this week.

The Edmond City Council approved the settlement Monday after Simmons filed suit in federal court earlier this year against the estate of the late Edmond Detective Sergeant Anthony “Tony” Garrett, retired Oklahoma City Detective Claude Shobert and the investigators' respective cities. The settlement resolves only Simmons' claims against Garrett and the city of Edmond. His claims against Shobert and Oklahoma City are still pending.

“Mr. Simmons has spent a tragically long time in prison for a crime he did not commit,” Elizabeth Wang, a partner at the law firm Loevy & Loevy and lead attorney in Simmons' federal case, said in a press release Tuesday. “While he will never get that time back, this settlement with Edmond allows him to move on while pursuing his claims against the defendants in Oklahoma City. We very much look forward to holding them accountable in court in March.”

When contacted Tuesday afternoon by The Oklahoman, part of the USA TODAY Network, Simmons reiterated his attorney's comments, adding that while it may seem the federal case is moving quickly, the time frame is disproportionate to the 48 years he has wrongfully spent in prison.

“But I praise God,” Simmons said. “God is good to me.”

Fatal shooting of a store employee

Simmons was convicted in 1974 of fatally shooting clerk Carolyn Sue Rogers during a liquor store robbery. His legal team claims Garrett and Shobert hid evidence that would have proven Simmons' innocence.

Simmons' lawyers also argue that investigators falsified the testimony of a witness who survived the robbery and identified Simmons in a lineup. He spent 48 years in prison until Oklahoma County Judge Amy Palumbo ordered his release in 2023 and declared Simmons “actually innocent” later that year.

According to the University of Michigan Law School's National Registry of Exonerations, Simmons is the longest-serving wrongfully convicted man in U.S. history and is set to receive $175,000 in compensation from the state of Oklahoma for a damages lawsuit filed earlier this year.

A jury trial in the federal case against Simmons is scheduled for March 2025.

Another man, Don Roberts, was also convicted of Rogers' murder. He and Simmons were both initially sentenced to death before a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1977 resulted in their sentences being commuted to life imprisonment.

Roberts was released on parole in 2008 but his conviction remains, but he hopes that his case will eventually be found innocent on the same basis as Simmons.

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