UPDATE: After Louisiana denied com­pen­sa­tion to Mr. Ford — who is in hos­pice care, dying from Stage 4 can­cer — Stroud gave an inter­view to the Huffington Post in which he says ​“death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions are a badge of show­ing how out-of-touch we are with oth­er civ­i­lized soci­eties.… We can’t trust the gov­ern­ment to fix pot­holes. Why should we believe they can design a death penal­ty sys­tem that’s fair?” PREVIOUSLY: In a let­ter to the Shreveport (Louisiana) Times, attor­ney A.M. ​“Marty” Stroud III (pic­tured), the lead pros­e­cu­tor in the 1984 tri­al that sent Glenn Ford to death row until he was exon­er­at­ed in 2014, offered his apolo­gies to Ford, ​“for all the mis­ery I have caused him and his fam­i­ly.” Stroud voiced his full belief in Ford’s inno­cence, say­ing ​“There was no tech­ni­cal­i­ty here. Crafty lawyer­ing did not secure the release of a criminal…Pursuant to the review and inves­ti­ga­tion of cold homi­cide cas­es, inves­ti­ga­tors uncov­ered evi­dence that exon­er­at­ed Mr. Ford. Indeed, this evi­dence was so strong that had it been dis­closed dur­ing of the inves­ti­ga­tion there would not have been suf­fi­cient evi­dence to even arrest Mr. Ford!” Stroud takes respon­si­bil­i­ty for being ​“too pas­sive” in pros­e­cut­ing the case. ​“I did not hide evi­dence, I sim­ply did not seri­ous­ly con­sid­er that suf­fi­cient infor­ma­tion may have been out there that could have led to a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion,” he said. ​“I was arro­gant, judg­men­tal, nar­cis­sis­tic and very full of myself. I was not as inter­est­ed in jus­tice as I was in win­ning.” Now he is call­ing for com­pen­sa­tion for Ford — who is dying of stage 4 can­cer that was untreat­ed while he was in prison — and a recon­sid­er­a­tion of the death penal­ty. ​“Glenn Ford deserves every pen­ny owed to him under the com­pen­sa­tion statute. This case is anoth­er exam­ple of the arbi­trari­ness of the death penal­ty.… No one should be giv­en the abil­i­ty to impose a sen­tence of death in any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ing. We are sim­ply inca­pable of devis­ing a sys­tem that can fair­ly and impar­tial­ly impose a sen­tence of death because we are all fal­li­ble human beings.”

(M. Stroud, ​“Lead pros­e­cu­tor apol­o­gizes for role in send­ing man to death row,” The Shreveport Times, March 20, 2015; V. Wellborn, In wake of apol­o­gy, ex pros­e­cu­tor calls for abol­ish­ment of death penal­ty, The Shreveport Times, March 20, 2015) See New Voices and Innocence.

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