A man who was originally sentenced to death in 1975 for the murder of a 20-year-old winery employee, 30, during an armed robbery in the city of Edmond, Oklahoma, was found not guilty yesterday.

His sentence was then commuted to life imprisonment and he spent 48 years in prison, always maintaining his innocence.

THE Glen Simmons (Glynn Simmons) , African-American, is now the man who spent the longest time in prison before being acquitted in US historyaccording to the national registry of acquittals.

Simmons, 71, was released from prison in July after 48 years, one month and 18 days in prison and yesterday he was acquitted by a court in Oklahoma, which overturned his conviction.

“This is a day we’ve been waiting for a long, long time. Justice was served today – finally,” the now “clean” Simmons told reporters. Now he will receive from the state 175,000 dollars as compensation. “What happened happened, but there must be accountability,” said the 71-year-old.

Simmons was convicted along with another man, Don Roberts, who was released in 2008.

The conviction of the two men was based on deposit a customer of the store, a teenager at the time – who was shot in the head during the robbery but survived.

The teenager identified them among other suspects presented to her by police, but the two defendants claimed they were not even in Oklahoma on the day of the robbery. In fact, Simmons “shouted” all these years his innocence, saying that he was that day in Louisiana.

Later research called into question the reliability of the identification and it took nearly 50 years to prove his innocence.

He was diagnosed with cancer and lives on donations

After his release from prison in June, Simmons was diagnosed with liver cancer and undergoing treatment.

The 71-year-old lives off the money raised at the charity GoFundMeopened specifically for this purpose, to help him reintegrate into society and survive with dignity as he has no other resources.

“I am 71 years old. I plan to use the remaining time to help others who are still “stuck” where I was. We need to fix this system so that what happened to me never happens to anyone else, ever again,” he wrote on GoFundMe’s Facebook page.

So far, more than $37,000 has been raised in donations, with a goal of $50,000.