What Glenn Ford deserved
He was exonerated—but the state refused to pay him for his 30 years on death row.
On November 5, 1983, Isadore Rozeman, a respected jeweler in Shreveport, Louisiana, was killed by a single gunshot to the head. Glenn Ford, who had done some yard work for Rozeman, was apprehended along with three other suspects accused of robbing the store. Ford was the only one to stand trial.
The prosecution secured a first-degree murder conviction and a sentence of death by capitalizing on two inexperienced defense attorneys appointed by the state, an all-white jury, and a presentation of dubious evidence to the jury. Despite his claims of innocence, Ford spent the next 30 years on death row in Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison, often in solitary confinement. Not until the Innocence Project intervened on Ford’s behalf in 2007 did the wheels of justice begin to turn. With credible evidence suggesting that Ford was not a participant in the murder, a state district judge voided the conviction and ordered Ford released in March 2014.
Penniless and suffering from stage IV lung cancer, Ford sought restitution. Louisiana law provides up to $330,000 in compensation to wrongly imprisoned people. But state courts managed to repeatedly deny Ford any funds, arguing that he could not prove his innocence in the robbery associated with Rozeman’s murder.
