Exonerated Death Row Inmate Meets the Former Prosecutor Who Put Him There
— -- When Glenn Ford walked out of prison for the first time in 30 years, he had a state-issued debit card for $20. His prison account had $0.24. Everything he owned fit into two cardboard boxes.
Until he was freed last March, Ford, now 65, had been one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the United States.
He was convicted in 1984, but then exonerated of first-degree murder after a new informant came forward and cleared him of the crime.
His former lawyer, Gary Clements, was by his side on his client’s first day of freedom.
“Nobody ever finds out the truth. Sometimes they don’t find out in time. Here they did,” Clements said. “That’s a blessing. To say that justice has arrived now, it’s a little 30-years-too-late.”
The person responsible for putting Ford behind bars is Marty Stroud, who prosecuted the original case back in 1984.
Stroud has now apologized to Ford, writing in a letter to the editor of the Shreveport Times in Shreveport, Louisiana, “I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning. ... I apologize to Glenn Ford for all the misery I have caused him and his family.”
“That case, I’ll never be able to put it to rest,” Stroud told “Nightline.”
Ford’s case began in 1983, when Isadore Rozeman, a local watch dealer in Shreveport, was found shot dead inside his home repair shop. Within days, the police zeroed in on Ford, who had done yard work for the victim.
Ford was put on trial and after seven days. Even though there were no eyewitnesses and no murder weapon, the jury came back with a guilty verdict and a death sentence, sending Ford to death row.
At the time, Stroud said he was “very pleased” with the verdict and went out and celebrated. But now, he is saying it wasn’t a fair fight.
“The deck was stacked on one end,” he said.
Ford’s court-appointed defense team had almost no experience and no resources.
“The lawyers had never even stepped foot in the courtroom before,” Clements said. “They never tried a case and here they are defending a capital case.”
Stroud reluctantly admitted he further stacked the deck against Ford by ensuring that the jury was all white.
“I knew I was excluding individuals we felt would not seriously consider the death penalty,” he said. “Looking back on it, I was not as sensitive to the issue of race as I am now.”
Ford’s outmatched defense team was also never told about the confidential informants working for law enforcement who pointed the finger at two other suspects, brothers Henry and Jake Robinson, for Rozeman’s murder.
Ford had told police the brothers gave him some items to pawn -- items, Ford later learned, that were stolen from the murdered watch dealer’s home.
While Ford sat on death row, the brothers remained free and, according to authorities, may be responsible for five other homicides. Both brothers are now in jail charged with other crimes. Neither, however, is charged with Rozeman’s murder.
Ford’s current attorney, William Most, said Ford’s case challenges people’s notion about how this nation works.
“The guy who didn’t commit the murder is the one who is put in jail and sentenced the death,” Most said. “And the ones who were part of it were let free to commit other crimes.”
Ford would still be on death row today if not for a confidential informant who told police in 2013 that Jake Robinson confessed to him regarding the killing of Isadore Rozeman.
