He spent thirty years on Louisiana's death row for a murder he had nothing to do with.
When he walked out, the state gave him twenty dollars on a debit card. Glenn Ford.
He was convicted in 1984 by an all-white jury. His court-appointed lawyers had never tried a criminal case — one specialised in oil and gas law.
The state's expert evidence was later shown to be worthless.
He was freed in March 2014, aged 64, after nearly three decades in solitary conditions. Then the prosecutor who put him there did something almost unheard of.
Marty Stroud wrote an open letter to his local newspaper apologizing — to Ford directly and saying he had been too arrogant and too career-focused to see what he was doing, and that he had taken thirty years from an innocent man.
Louisiana still refused to compensate Ford, arguing a technicality.
He had lung cancer by then. It had gone untreated in prison. He died fifteen months after his release.
He got thirty years in a cell, twenty dollars on the way out, an apology, and no money. In that order.