After 30 years on death row in Louisiana, Glenn Ford is now a free man. Ford was convicted in 1984 for a murder he did not commit. The victim, Isadore Rozeman, owned a small jewelry shop in Shreveport, LA. On Nov. 5th, 1983, he was found shot and killed inside his store. Ford did yard work for Rozeman, and witnesses placed him near the shop at the time of the murder. Ford voluntarily went in to the police station and cooperated with the investigation for months prior to being charged.
In 1984, Ford, a black man, was convicted by an all-white jury. His young and inexperienced lawyers, failed to provide effective assistance of counsel. In addition, the prosecution failed to disclose that an informant implicated two other men in the murder.
Ford appealed his sentence for years, all the way to the Louisiana Supreme Court where his conviction and sentence were upheld despite the court having “serious questions” about the evidence at hand.
Last Thursday, prosecutors filed a motion to vacate Ford’s conviction, saying that late last year they learned of “credible evidence” that indicated Ford was not present at or involved in the robbery or murder of Isadore Rozeman.
Now, after spending years in Angola prison’s notoriously inhumane death row, Ford walks free. In jail, he missed his sons’ childhoods; now they have children of their own. He resents the years taken from him, and now is faced with the difficult task of rebuilding his life on the outside.
