A Louisiana man walked free out of jail, Tuesday, after spending almost 26 years for a crime he did not commit.
Glenn Ford, 64, was convicted in 1983 of robbing and murdering 56-year-old Isadore Rozeman, a Shreveport jeweller. Ford has long denied killing of Rozeman and also filed several appeals that were denied.
A Shreveport judge ordered Ford's release after the prosecutors petitioned to set him free. The new information corroborated Ford's statement that he was neither present nor involved when Rozeman was murdered, reports CNN.
He was freed from Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, where he was on death sentence since March 1985. The state uses electrocution method to execute inmates.
"We are very pleased to see Glenn Ford finally exonerated, and we are particularly grateful that the prosecution and the court moved ahead so decisively to set Mr. Ford free," said Gary Clements and Aaron Novod, attorneys for Ford from the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana, reports Reuters.
Ford said he was glad that he was out after spending several years in jail but resented that he was wrongly jailed. "It feels good; my mind is going in all kind of directions. It feels good," he told WAFB-TV, reports the Associated Press. "Yeah, cause, I've been locked up almost 30 years for something I didn't do."
According to Clements and Novod, Ford's trial had been "profoundly compromised by inexperienced counsel and by the unconstitutional suppression of evidence, including information from an informant." They added that the police report related to the time of crime and evidence involving the murder weapon was suppressed.
The Shreveport Times reports that court document shows that a tipster told the prosecutors in 2013 that Jake Robinson confessed of killing Rozeman, reports Reuters.
The Louisiana law states that innocent inmates who were wrongly imprisoned and later exonerated would receive compensation of $25,000 per year of wrongful incarceration up to a maximum of $250,000, plus up to $80,000 for loss of "life opportunities," AP reports.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 144 inmates including Ford have been exonerated in the past four decades.
