Vincent Simmons has not received a settlement or any compensation for the 44 years he spent in Louisiana prisons. His conviction was vacated in February 2022, and he filed a federal civil rights lawsuit five months later, but no settlement, judgment, or state wrongful-conviction award has been reported as of 2026.
The Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit
In July 2022, Simmons sued in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. The complaint alleges that Avoyelles Parish prosecutors and sheriff’s office officials fabricated evidence and suppressed exculpatory material to convict him in 1977. It names Robert Laborde, a sheriff’s deputy at the time, and John Laborde, the former parish assessor, among the officials accused of acting “under color of law” to shield Keith Laborde, the assessor’s son and the cousin of the two teenage accusers. Both Robert and John Laborde are deceased.
Simmons is seeking unspecified damages and a jury trial. Neither the Avoyelles Parish Sheriff’s Office nor the prosecutor’s office has publicly responded to the allegations in the reporting available, and the docket shows no settlement or verdict.
Why Louisiana State Compensation Is Not Automatic
Louisiana has a separate track for people who were wrongfully imprisoned. The statute allows a petition for up to $40,000 for each year of incarceration, capped at $400,000. A petition must be filed within two years of the conviction being reversed.
The obstacle for Simmons is the standard of proof. To collect, a petitioner has to prove “factual innocence” by clear and convincing evidence. His 2022 court victory did not establish that. Judge William Bennett vacated the conviction on constitutional grounds, finding that exculpatory evidence was never turned over to the defense, and stated explicitly that he offered “no opinion on the guilt or innocence of Vincent Simmons.” District Attorney Charles Riddle, announcing that he would not retry the case, was equally blunt: “Just in case anyone has any doubt, no this is not a declaration of innocence at all.” Riddle said he still believed there was “sufficient evidence to find Vincent Simmons guilty,” but that Simmons had “served enough time” and that a retrial would retraumatize the accusers. The charges were formally dismissed by nolle prosequi.
That leaves Simmons in an unusual position. The National Registry of Exonerations lists him as an exoneree under case number 13188, recording his incarceration as 1977 to 2022. But registry recognition is not a court finding of innocence, and Louisiana’s compensation statute looks to the court finding.
The Withheld Evidence Behind the Civil Claims
Simmons obtained the prosecution’s case file in 1993 and found material his 1977 defense had never seen. That material is the backbone of the civil rights suit.
- The twins and their 18-year-old cousin Keith Laborde initially described the attacker to police only as “a black subject, name unknown.” At trial they testified the attacker had identified himself as “Simmons.”
- A coroner’s examination performed roughly two weeks after the alleged assault documented no physical signs of sexual assault and noted that one of the sisters’ hymens was intact.
- A photograph of the police lineup showed Simmons as the only person in handcuffs, which his later attorneys called “highly suggestive.”
- The file contained statements from one of the accusers using racial slurs, including the remark that “all blacks look alike to me.”
A private investigator hired in 2020 by New York attorney Justin Bonus turned up more. Dana Brouillette, a cousin of Keith Laborde, signed an affidavit stating that Laborde had told her no Black man was involved in the 1977 incident, that he had engaged in consensual sexual activity with one of the twins and locked the other in the car trunk, and that the story of a Black attacker was invented to explain scratches on his neck. Keith Laborde has denied the account and continues to maintain that Simmons is guilty. Karen Sanders acknowledged in a later interview that she and Laborde had “experimented” with consensual sex as children. Neither sister has ever recanted the assault allegation.
Diane Prater, the only Black juror at the 1977 trial, said she never believed Simmons was guilty and that the foreman told her a 10-2 majority was enough to convict. Louisiana permitted non-unanimous verdicts until 2018.
What the 1977 Trial Looked Like
The speed of the original prosecution matters to the civil case. Simmons was arrested on May 23, 1977. His trial began less than 60 days later, lasted two days, and produced a conviction from a jury of 11 white men and one Black woman in minutes. On July 28, 1977, Judge Earl Edwards imposed two consecutive 50-year sentences for attempted aggravated rape, totaling 100 years. From arrest to sentencing, the process took under 90 days.
When Judge Bennett vacated the conviction 44 years later, he concluded that the rapid pace of the 1977 trial likely meant police never provided the withheld evidence to the original prosecutor, Eddie Knoll, rather than anyone intentionally concealing it from the defense. The civil complaint disagrees, alleging deliberate suppression and fabrication by named sheriff’s office and prosecutorial actors.
Where the Compensation Question Stands
Two tracks remain open. The federal lawsuit is the more direct path to a settlement or damages award, and it is pending without any public response from the defendants in the reporting available. The state wrongful-conviction fund is the other path, but it requires a factual-innocence showing that neither the vacatur order nor the DA’s dismissal supplies. A petition would have to be filed within two years of the February 2022 reversal.
Simmons walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola on the evening of February 14, 2022, after 44 years and roughly six months in custody. Whether any of that time is compensated, and by whom, has not been decided.