Social Media Users Sign Petition Seeking Release Of Man Who Has Spent 38 Years In Jail For Stealing $9

Social media users gather to support a black American man convicted of $9 theft and who has already served 38 years in prison.

Internet users have started a petition on Change.org for Simmons to obtain his release through judicial conversion. According to the petition, the man, a U.S. Army veteran, was prosecuted in 1982.

He had already been convicted three times, including one for theft. He told reporter Beth Shellbure that the other two were destined to receive stolen goods.

Mr. Simons was convicted of first-degree theft and sentenced to life without parole for stealing $9, a crime for which he has spent the past 38 years in prison.

Over the years, Mr. Simmons has lodged several unauthorized appeals. All of his appeals have been dismissed, and due to a change in Alabama law in 2014, it appears that he is no longer able to appeal.

In the interest of move by his case, an activist, Makehru Bradley launched the petition with a target of 4.5 million signatures, calling on Justice Governor Kay Ivey to commute Mr. Simmons’ judgment. At the time of filing this report, the petition had garnered over 3 million signatures.

In other news, Joe Ligon, who was sentenced to life imprisonment at the age of 15, was released from a Pennsylvania prison after 68 years in prison.

Ligon who is now 83-year-old was convicted of participating in a series of robberies and assaults involving a group of drunk teenagers that resulted in two deaths in Philadelphia in 1953.

At a hearing, Ligon was found guilty of first-degree murder and Ligon admitted stabbing at least one of the eight people stabbed that day, but his attorney Bradley Bridge said his client claimed he never killed anyone.

“The child that committed those crimes back in 1953 no longer exists. The person that came out of prison in 2021 is 83 years old, has grown, changed, and is no longer a threat,”

“He has amply repaid society for the damage and harm that he did. And now, it’s appropriate that he spends the last years of his life in freedom.,” his lawyer said. (Continue reading here)