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Glenn Ford, Shreveport man freed from death sentence, dies at 65

Shreveport TImes

Glenn Ford, the Shreveport man exonerated last year after spending 30 years on death row, died yesterday.

Credit Shreveport TImes

Ford was 33 years old when he was wrongfully convicted of killing a Shreveport jeweler and sent to solitary confinement on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Nearly three decades later, the longest-serving death row inmate in the country was released.

Ford petitioned the state for compensation for his wrongful conviction. He received only $20 for a bus ride.

The 65-year-old Ford died surrounded by friends and family in his New Orleans home. He was suffering from Stage 4 lung cancer.

Ford’s story has sparked a nationwide debate about the death penalty. An article out in The New Yorkerexplores how juries in Caddo Parish give more death sentences per capita than any other county in the nation. Of those who have received death sentences in the last forty years, 77 percent of them have been black, and almost half were convicted of killing a white person. The same New Yorker article says that a white person has never received a death sentence for killing a black person. 

    

Copyright 2021 Red River Radio. To see more, visit Red River Radio.

Joy Shan

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