CNN
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A Florida man who served three decades behind bars for a murder he says he didn’t commit returned to prison Monday after spending the past two years building a life outside prison walls.
Since his parole in 2021 amid appeals, Crosley Green, 65, has held a job at a mechanical transplant facility, attended church and spent time with his grandchildren. He even fell in love.
“I’ve been with this man for two years,” his fiancée, Kathy Spikes, told CNN. “Not being able to get a phone call at 5 p.m. to say, ‘I’m home,’ for me to say, ‘What do you want for dinner,’ that’s what worries me. ”
His return to prison came about two weeks after U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton ruled that he must surrender to authorities by April 17 in order to serve his life sentence again.
Green turned himself in to the Florida Department of Corrections at 5 p.m. Monday, according to his attorneys. He was accompanied by Spikes, members of his family and his lawyers Keith Harrison and Jeane Thomas, who have represented him pro bono for 15 years.
Green was allowed to leave prison conditionally in 2021, about three years after a federal court in Orlando overturned his conviction. The State of Florida appealed that decision and won last year, and Green’s conviction was reinstated. Dalton allowed Green to remain free while he exhausted his legal options. Green’s legal team petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, but in late February the court declined to hear his case.
“I can’t be mad at anyone,” Green told CNN. “I don’t want anyone else to be mad at anyone. Anger will get you nowhere. I won’t do anything but hurt you. I am happy. I’m not happy to go back. I have my future wife, I have my friends who came here with me. I have my family.
Green was convicted of the shooting death of 21-year-old Charles Flynn in 1989. Green, who is black, was sentenced to death by an all-white jury and then sentenced again to life in prison in 2009 due to a technicality related to the sentencing phase of his trial.
In 2018, Judge Dalton ruled that prosecutors improperly withheld evidence that police at one point suspected someone else was the shooter. But late last year, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and reinstated Green’s conviction, saying the evidence withheld was not material to the case.
Green’s only options to avoid prison now are clemency or parole, according to his legal team.
“We think he’s a great candidate for parole,” Thomas said. “He demonstrated that for the last two years he was on supervised release. She is an incredibly successful person on the outside, through her work, her church, and her family.
Thomas emphasized that leniency is not the same as exoneration. She says it’s simply a mechanism by which the state decides a person has served enough time behind bars to be released.
Since his release, Green has worn an ankle monitor and has been “a model citizen,” according to Thomas.
“For 15 years now, we have believed wholeheartedly, 100 percent, in our client’s innocence,” Thomas said. “As lawyers, we have to trust that the justice system will get it right. We will continue to fight. This is a serious injustice. And we just think we’ll get there eventually.
Despite the latest ruling, Green remains optimistic in his fight to prove his innocence. In a statement shared by his lawyers with CNN, he said: “For me, this is just another part of what I’m going through right now to get my freedom.” That’s all it is.
He further attributed his perseverance to his faith in his comments to CNN.
“If everyone can just believe in themselves as I believe in myself, with the Lord, then you will be able to understand and say the things that I can say without letting anything come between you and your faith,” did he declare.