The attorney said all he cared about was winning cases.
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| Illustration adapted from Krishnaraj Rao. |
The lead prosecutor in a case that sent an innocent Louisiana man to death row for 30 years, penned a heartfelt apology to the man admitting, “I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning.”
In the letter, published by the Shreveport Times, attorney A.M. Stroud III claimed responsibility for the conviction of Glenn Ford in the 1983 murder of Isadore Rozeman, a Shreveport jeweler.
“I was at the trial of Glenn Ford from beginning to end. I witnessed the imposition of the death sentence upon him. I believed that justice was done,” Stroud wrote. “I had done my job. I was one of the prosecutors and I was proud of what I had done.”
Ford, now 64, was released from Louisiana’snotorious Angola prison on Tuesday by a Shreveport judge after Louisiana state prosecutors stated they could no longer stand by his conviction.
Ford was sentenced to death by an all-white jury and convicted despite the testimony of a primary witness who admitted in court that she lied to protect her boyfriend who was also a suspect.
Stroud wrote his letter in support of Ford, who is seeking to be compensated by the state for the time spent while wrongly incarcerated.
“Glenn Ford should be completely compensated to every extent possible because of the flaws of a system that effectively destroyed his life,” Stroud wrote. “The audacity of the state’s effort to deny Mr. Ford any compensation for the horrors he suffered in the name of Louisiana justice is appalling.”
According to Stroud, he was only interested in winning the case, writing, “In 1984, I was 33 years old. I was arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself. I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning. To borrow a phrase from Al Pacino in the movie And Justice for All, ‘Winning became everything.'"
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