A Florida man spent two years out of prison only to be sent back by an appeals court for a murder he maintains he didn’t commit. Before his release, he spent three decades in prison.
According to CNN, 65-year-old Crosley Alexander Green returned to prison on Monday, two weeks after US District Judge Roy Dalton ordered him to turn himself into authorities to resume his life sentence.
Green was surrounded by his fiancée Kathy Spikes, family members and lawyers Keith Harrison and Jeane Thomas as he ceded to Florida’s Department of Corrections.
Thomas and Harrison represented Green pro bono for 15 years.
After his conditional release in 2021, Green worked at a grafting machine facility, spent time with his grandchildren and fell in love. His return to prison forces his family to endure without his presence, which will be hard for his soon-to-be wife of two years.
“I’ve been with this man for two years,” Spikes told CNN. “To not be able to have a 5 o’clock phone call to say, ‘I’m home,’ for me to say, ‘What do you want for dinner,’ that’s what I’m anxious about.”
Green’s freedom was snatched after the state of Florida appealed an Orlando federal court’s decision to overturn the 65-year-old’s conviction. The state won, reinstating his conviction. Green’s legal team attempted to get the Supreme Court to hear his case, but they refused.
Green was initially sentenced to death by an all-white jury for shooting and killing 21-year-old Charles Flynn on April 3, 1989. In 2009, a technicality landed him a life sentence.
According to the documents from the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, Flynn was in his pickup truck with his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Kim Hallock, who was 19 then (both white). At one point, Flynn got out to “relieve himself,” and that’s when a Black man approached him and held him at gunpoint. Hallock told investigators that she grabbed a gun under Flynn’s dashboard and hid it under a pair of jeans beside her on the seat.
The document read that the perpetrator told her to hand him Flynn’s shoelace since he left the truck barefooted. However, Hallock changed her story numerous times, saying the gunman made her tie Flynn’s hands behind his back. And then she said she tied his hands behind his back without saying the gunman told her.
The gunman made Hallock drive them someplace else and forced her out of the car. During all that, Flynn grabbed the gun under the jeans (where Hallock put it) and got out of the truck with his hands behind his back. He managed to shoot the man but failed. Yet, no gun residue was found on him.
Hallock managed to drive off and drove to her best friend David Stroup’s trailer to dial 911. Not her parents or a nearby hospital.
Hallock told investigators that the Black man had an afro with greasy ringlets over his ears. Green’s hair was cropped like his mug shot. The detectives found a tennis shoe footprint they assumed belonged to the gunman, but Hallock said the gunman wore work boots.
Prosecutors said the footprints were specifically Win Streak sneakers, yet Green had one pair of sneakers he owned, which were Reeboks.
The two pieces of evidence that linked Green to the crime were the hair found in Flynn’s truck and the dog tracking a scent from the footprint that led him to Green’s sister’s house.
Prosecutors claim witnesses testified that Green confessed to the murder and another said they saw Green at a park near the accident site. Yet, his lawyers said many of the “witnesses” had criminal histories used against them.
Green has already served 33 years in prison, making him eligible for parole. Clemency and parole are his only options to get out of prison.
“We think he’s an outstanding candidate for parole,” Thomas said. “He’s demonstrated that in the last two years, he’s been under supervised release. He’s been an incredibly successful person on the outside with his work, his church and his family.”
While Green was released from prison, he wore an ankle monitor, and his lawyers say he was an exemplary citizen.
“For 15 years now, we have believed wholeheartedly, 100 percent in the innocence of our client,” Thomas added. “As lawyers, we have to believe that the justice system will get it right. We’re going to keep fighting. This is a grave injustice. And we just believe that eventually, we will get it right.”
His family is asking Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to review his case and grant him clemency.
During his time out of prison, Green enjoyed the simple things in life, like smoking a cigarette, drinking coffee and feeding squirrels.
It’s not the situation the 65-year-old would want to be in, but he still has faith in the system and refuses to be angry at anyone.
“I can’t be angry at no one,” Green said. “I don’t want no one else to be angry at no one. Anger isn’t going to take you nowhere. Ain’t going to do (anything) but harm you. I’m happy. I’m not happy about going back. I’ve got my future wife, I’ve got my friend that came up here with me. I’ve got my family.”
He concluded, “If everyone can just believe in themselves the way I believe in myself, with the Lord, then you can understand and say the things that I can say by not letting anything come between you and your faith.”
