In 1983, the State of Louisiana sentenced Glenn Ford to the death penalty for murdering a 56-year-old jeweler. In 2014, new evidence proved Ford’s innocence and he was released after 30 years of imprisonment, but the state refused to compensate Ford for the years he spent in jail. And after The Shreveport Times wrote an editorial protesting the state’s decision, they were joined by the man who personally prosecuted Ford himself.

A.M. “Marty” Stroud III was 33 when he sent Ford to prison, and in a brutally honest editorial printed today in the Shreveport Times, accepted his role in destroying Ford’s life and argued that the state needed to compensate him “to every extent possible because of the flaws of a system that effectively destroyed his life,” he 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.

“I know of what I speak,” Stroud continued.

Stroud tore about his own behavior and admitted that he was “arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic” and “not as interested in justice as I was in winning.” Because of that fatal blind spot, Stroud said, he refused to question the inherent unfairness of the trial: Ford, an African-American man, was tried before an all-white jury, and defended by a team who had never tried a criminal jury case.

Moreover, he admitted that he was not diligent enough: “At the time this case was tried there was evidence that would have cleared Glenn Ford. The easy and convenient argument is that the prosecutors did not know of such evidence, thus they were absolved of any responsibility for the wrongful conviction,” he wrote. “I can take no comfort in such an argument. As a prosecutor and officer of the court, I had the duty to prosecute fairly. While I could properly strike hard blows, ethically I could not strike foul ones.”

But his biggest argument against the death penalty was that its nature incentivized him, a cocky young lawyer, to win at all costs:

After the death verdict in the Ford trial, I went out with others and celebrated with a few rounds of drinks. That’s sick. I had been entrusted with the duty to seek the death of a fellow human being, a very solemn task that certainly did not warrant any “celebration.” In my rebuttal argument during the penalty phase of the trial, I mocked Mr. Ford, stating that this man wanted to stay alive so he could be given the opportunity to prove his innocence. I continued by saying this should be an affront to each of you jurors, for he showed no remorse, only contempt for your verdict. How totally wrong was I. I speak only for me and no one else. I apologize to Glenn Ford for all the misery I have caused him and his family. I apologize to the family of Mr. Rozeman for giving them the false hope of some closure. I apologize to the members of the jury for not having all of the story that should have been disclosed to them. I apologize to the court in not having been more diligent in my duty to ensure that proper disclosures of any exculpatory evidence had been provided to the defense.

Stroud ended his letter calling for the abolition of the death penalty, calling it an arbitrary system run by “fallible human beings” and “anathema to any society that purports to call itself civilized.”

“I end with the hope that providence will have more mercy for me than I showed Glenn Ford,” he wrote. “But, I am also sobered by the realization that I certainly am not deserving of it.”

Watch Stroud discuss the case below, via The Shreveport Times:



[Shreveport Times]

[Image via screenshot]

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