DENVER (CN) — The 10th Circuit on Thursday reversed a lower court’s terse denial of qualified immunity to an Oklahoma City detective who worked the murder case that wrongfully imprisoned Glynn Simmons for 48 years, the longest known sentence for an exoneree in American history.
“Because the district court did not conduct a sufficient qualified immunity analysis, we vacate and remand for the court to fully consider the defense in the first instance,” the federal appeals panel wrote in a nine-page opinion.
The case dates back to Dec. 30, 1974, when Carolyn Sue Rogers was murdered at the liquor store where she worked in Edmond, Oklahoma. Oklahoma City Police Department Detective Claude Shobert helped investigate by conducting lineups of potential perpetrators…