27 February 2010 :

Former death-row inmate Ernest Simmons, who had been on death row since 1992 for robbing and strangling an 80-year-old woman will walk free from prison on May 14 or July 11. Simmons, 52, black, spent more than 17 years in prison for the May 6, 1992 killing of Anna Knaze. That date is in line with expectations by Simmons’ attorneys that he would be a free man within months after he entered the no-contest plea to third-degree murder in late December. Betsy Nightingale, spokeswoman for State Correctional Institution-Laurel Highlands in Somerset, said Simmons still faces a review hearing in the prison with state parole officers before the state Bureau of Probation and Parole approves his release date. Simmons has steadfastly maintained his innocence. He sat on Pennsylvania’s death row until February 2005 when U.S. District Judge Sean McLaughlin of the Western District of Pennsylvania ruled that Simmons deserved a new trial because Cambria County prosecutors withheld evidence that could have cast doubt on a key witness. Then after Cambria prosecutors appealed McLaughlin’s order, on Sept. 11, 2009, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the appeal setting the stage for another trial for Simmons. Prosecutors, rather than going to trial with a weakened case after the judge’s ruling, reached the plea deal with Simmons in December in which he agreed to plead no contest to 3rd-degree murder. Under a five- to 10-year term imposed by Judge Timothy Creany, Simmons essentially got time served. In addition, he is to be on probation for 10 years after released from state prison.