Declared innocent on December 19 after spending nearly half a century in prison for a murder he did not commit, a 71-year-old man will not be able to enjoy his freedom for long, report several American media.
Glynn Simmons earlier this month became the longest-serving person in U.S. history before being exonerated.
The latter was convicted in 1975 of the murder of an employee of a liquor store in Oklahoma.
Initially sentenced to death with another co-defendant, the African-American man finally saw his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
However, a more recent investigation made it possible to overturn the guilty verdict. GLynn Simmons was therefore released in July, then formally exonerated on December 19.
However, the man, now 71 years old, suffers from stage 4 colon cancer and doctors give him little chance of living beyond the next five years.
A crowdfunding campaign was launched on the GoFundMe platform to help Mr. Simmons pay for his ordinary expenses as well as his medical bills.
“He can’t work. He has to undergo chemotherapy every two weeks,” said one of the septuagenarian’s lawyers, Joe Norwood.
Glynn Simmons was diagnosed with cancer in 2021. He underwent surgery, but the following year, prison doctors discovered a lesion on his liver. This was not treated during his incarceration due to the pandemic.
“I didn’t undergo treatment before I got out of prison,” says the 71-year-old.
“It’s good that he’s free, but he lost almost 50 years of his life and now he’s dying. What happened to him is a travesty (of justice), claims Kim T. Cole, another lawyer who is helping Mr. Simmons obtain monetary compensation from the American government.
