Glynn Simmons, aged 70, was released from prison in July 2023. In December, he was declared innocent in the 1974 murder of Carolyn Sue Rogers. His is the longest-known wrongful conviction in the US.
According to Wikipedia, by February 2020, a total of
2,551 exonerations were mentioned in the National Registry of
Exonerations in the US. The total time spent by these exonerated
people in prison adds up to 22,540 years.
As of January 2020, the Innocence Project has documented more
than 375 DNA
exonerations in the US. Twenty-one of these
exonerees had been sentenced to death. The National Registry of Exonerations is
a public database that records all exonerations in the US since 1989, including
cases in which DNA played a limited or no role. In January 2020, the database
contained more than 3,300 cases.
48 years (a ghazal)
Incarceration...
How
would you feel if you won the day, your freedom,
knowing a
cold white injustice stole away that freedom?
Uncomfortable
are the seconds stretched long, nowhere to hide
in the void
between hours where you pay for the guilty’s freedom.
The
wronged speak from the same page, made silent, voiceless,
step
inside themselves, knowing the state did slay their freedom.
There’s this
physical cage and the one you build in your mind,
the one
that tries to stop you breaking as you pray for freedom.
You line
your walls with photographs, memories and people,
to warm
you on these icy nights you cry weary for your freedom.
There’s
a man who whistles each and every morning that he rises,
full of
hope til nighttime strangles this poor grey semblance of freedom.
These steel
bars can play a chord, tap a song, without dance.
This
numbness devoid of motion makes us clay without freedom.
We wait
in line, a queue with no end, our misery a silent hum.
We are
not who we were when we could lay down in freedom.
Pink dawn
throws light on our horizon, promises an ever-after,
a tomorrow
when we can walk outside and feel okay, in freedom.
... and liberation
Someone
told a lie, ignored the facts, and they sentenced you,
but you
always knew you’d be handed back one day your freedom.
You drive
beneath the strewn-out stars, down to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Seasons
change, but it feels the same, this sacred way of freedom.
It’s a view
you haven’t known for near five decades long,
but it’s
like yesterday, and you savour this sweet sway of freedom.
Yours is
the longest-known wrong conviction in all America.
And yours
was the longest-ever pathway back to freedom.
You know
they set you up and they paid no care about justice.
But this
Christmas you ate with family, no castaway from freedom.
The real
murderer, he’s still out there, I guess. He stayed silent.
But today
you walk out high, walk proud this day in freedom.
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, January 6, 2024
