BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A Brevard County man who has maintained his innocence after being convicted of murder has been tentatively granted parole decades from now.
Crosley Green was convicted of murder more than three decades ago, but has never stopped proclaiming his innocence.
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The Florida Commission on Offender Review has denied a request for immediate parole, instead, this week they gave Green a tentative parole release date in 2054. By then, if he’s alive, he’d be 97 years old.
“It was really devastating for Crosley and his family and all of his supporters,” said Jeane Thomas, a partner at Crowell & Moring.
Read: Crosley Green returns to prison for 1990 murder conviction
Green’s two paths to freedom remain parole or clemency.
On Sept. 5, 1990, Green was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1989 first-degree murder of Charles “Chip” Flynn, who was shot to death in Mims. Green’s attorneys say there’s no direct evidence tying him to the murder, and that prosecution witnesses have recanted testimony since Green’s conviction.
Read: ‘Justice will prevail’: Attorneys work to keep convicted killer Crosley Green out of prison
In 2009, Green was resentenced to life in prison.
In 2018, Green’s conviction was overturned, but then an appeals court overturned that ruling. The U.S Supreme Court declined to hear Green’s case.
“Even though the parole commission ruled on Wednesday that they would not be looking at this case again until March of 2026, we are pursuing any number of options,” Thomas said.
As of yet, Green’s defense team has not presented a case for clemency to the governor.
“We think there are compelling grounds based not only on the overwhelming evidence that he’s innocent of this crime but also that he’s been an absolute model prisoner over 32 years, just a spotless record,” Thomas said.
Green was under conditional release from April 2021 to April 2023 until attorneys exhausted all their legal options in court, and Green was forced to report back to prison to continue his sentence.
Read: ‘A free man’: Man who spent 30 years in prison released 2 years after conviction overturned
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