A 69-year-old African American was released from prison after serving 44 years in prison for a rape sentence that the judge has now overturned because the defendant was not guaranteed a fair trial. In 1977 Vincent Simmons was sentenced by an almost all white jury in Louisiana to 100 years in prison for the attempted sexual assault of two white girls, 14-year-old twins. The man had already tried 16 times to get a retrial but only managed to get it after a CBS investigation which established that a series of evidence had not been handed over to the defense. Among these was the crucial testimony of a doctor who claimed that there were no signs of sexual violence against the girls. Or the first testimony of the two girls who said they couldn’t tell who attacked them because “all blacks look alike.” Based on these elements, Judge Bill Bennett ordered Simmons’ release from Angola State Penitentiary and ordered a retrial.
At this point the district attorney, while stating that he believed that there were still “sufficient elements to convict Simmons”, announced that he would not charge him again for “not making the victims face the trauma of a retrial”. So Simmons now, after having proclaimed his innocence for decades, is a free man: “God has kept hope alive in me, God has granted me this”, he told a local television that was waiting for him at the exit. from the penitentiary.