Crosley Green ordered to remain incarcerated after returning to prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit

By Carlos Suarez, Denise Royal and Emma Tucker, CNN

(CNN) — The state of Florida on Wednesday did not agree to release Crosley Green, a man who served three decades behind bars for a murder he says he didn’t commit, two months after he was ordered to return to prison following his conditional release in 2021.

Attorneys for Green, 65, asked the Florida Commission on Offender Review this week to reconsider his presumptive parole release date, which was originally set for 2059 in 2015. During the Wednesday hearing, the commission responded by shortening Green’s parole eligibility date by five years to 2054.

Green, who is Black, was convicted in the 1989 shooting death of 21-year-old Charles Flynn. He was sentenced to death by an all-White jury, then resentenced to life in prison in 2009 due to a technicality related to the sentencing phase of his trial.

In 2018, US District Judge Roy Dalton ruled prosecutors had improperly withheld evidence that police at one point suspected someone else was the shooter, which led to his conditional release in 2021. But late last year, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and reinstated Green’s conviction, saying the withheld evidence was not material to the case.

Dalton allowed Green to remain free while he exhausted his legal options. Green’s legal team petitioned the US Supreme Court, but in late February the court declined to hear his case.

In April, Judge Dalton ruled Green must turn himself in to the authorities by April 17 to continue serving life in prison. On that date, he surrendered to Florida’s Department of Corrections while being accompanied by his fiancée, Kathy Spikes, family members and his lawyers Keith Harrison and Jeane Thomas, who have represented him pro bono for 15 years.

While Green spent two years outside prison walls, he held a job at a machine grafting facility, attended church and spent time with his grandchildren. He also got engaged, CNN previously reported.

“I can’t be angry at no one,” Green previously told CNN. “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 friends that came up here with me. I’ve got my family.”

At the hearing in Tallahassee this week, lawyers for Green argued his parole date was inaccurately calculated and their client should be released based on his stellar record and the facts of the case that point to his innocence. They also told the commission that based on Florida law, Green’s parole date should have been vacated and reset once he was released from prison in 2021.

In a statement, the commission said it will review Green’s case in March 2026.

“In Florida, an inmate is not considered for parole release until his hearing on his effective parole release date interview,” said Rana Wallace, general counsel for the Florida Commission on Offender Review.

Wallace says Green’s parole release date could be modified at that hearing.

“We are pursuing every avenue available to Crosley in order to secure his freedom,” Harrison, Green’s attorney, told CNN. “We are still hopeful that the Commission will continue to consider the arguments we raised to grant Crosley’s immediate parole. We are also going to seek clemency from Gov. DeSantis.”

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