By 1999 Simmons had filed numerous habeas corpus writs, but had not gained an evidentiary hearing by a Louisiana court.
[3] He is the sole subject of a follow-up documentary Shadows of Doubt: Vincent Simmons (1999), which explored his case, its weaknesses, and his severe sentence.
Vincent Alfred Simmons is an African-American man from Mansura, a small town in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana.
[2] On May 22, 1977, Karen and Sharon Sanders of Marksville, Avoyelles Parish, 14-year-old white twins, reported to family that they had been raped by a black man two weeks before, on May 9.
In statements to police, the twins claimed that they, along with their 18-year-old cousin Keith Laborde (revealed to have been 20 at the time), had encountered a black man at the 7-11 in Marksville.
After driving to an isolated location, he took out each twin and raped her separately, then returned the three to town and set them free at the cemetery.
According to him, when he refused to make a statement about the purported crimes, he was manhandled by one of the officers, while still handcuffed, pushed down, and kicked while on the floor.
[4] The police version of events is that Simmons, still in handcuffs, disarmed Officer Melvin Villamarette and tried to fire at LaBorde, but was unable to release the safety.
[2][6] Prosecutor Eddie Knoll gained an indictment against Simmons from the parish grand jury on two counts of aggravated rape.
Executions of persons on death rows were suspended and the respective state courts were ordered to amend their sentences to the next lower level of severity, generally life imprisonment.
2d 1212 (1976), that "the imposition and enforcement of the death penalty in aggravated rape cases under the statute at issue ... constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
[7] Simmons was tried before a jury of eleven white men and one black woman[2] in July 1977, with counsel by a court-appointed attorney.
[10] Days before the Simmons trial, DA Eddie Knoll amended the charges against the defendant to "attempted aggravated rape."
He failed to note the numerous discrepancies between the twins' and their cousin's police interviews, preliminary examinations, and testimony at trial.
[2] For example, when the twins and Keith Laborde gave their initial statements to the police, they said they did not know their attacker's identity and said that "all blacks look alike."
He learned that the doctor who examined the twins reported that Sharon Sanders' hymen was intact three weeks after the date of the alleged rape and that she was a virgin.
"[11] The law was overturned by the US Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008), which ruled that the death penalty for child rape was unconstitutional as "cruel and unusual punishment".
[11] On Monday, February 14, 2022, Avoyelles Parish Judge William Bennett granted a new trial, a monumental legal feat.
District Attorney Charlie Riddle dismissed the charges against Simmons with the consent of the women, Sharon and Karen Sanders.
[13] Jonathan Stack, one of the directors and producers of that film, returned to Angola and Avoyelles Parish to explore more about Simmons and his case.