BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Crosley Green maintains he’s innocent and was wrongfully convicted.
He spent almost 32 years in prison, including 19 years on death row, after the 1989 shooting death of 22-year-old Charles Flynn in a citrus grove. He’s been a free man for two years after a U.S. district court overturned his murder conviction.
“The last two years have been the best years of my life. I reunited with my family and met my grandkids for the first time. I learned a new job that I really love. I’ve enjoyed worshipping with my church in Titusville. And I’ve begun new relationships that have changed my life. I would like to live the years I have left in freedom and peace,” Green said.
But now, his lawyers say he turned himself back in to authorities on Monday after the state appealed that 2018 decision and the 11th Circuit reversed it.
“Yes, I’m going to get my freedom one day. I believe wholeheartedly that I’m gone have my freedom one day,” Green said in an interview provided Sunday by his lawyers. “It’s hard to get me angry or upset. I just mainly feel sorry for others who know that I’ll be turning myself in.”
News 6 sat down with Green last year after his murder conviction was overturned. He told us then, he was looking forward to spending time with his family. However, that time will soon come to an end when he turns himself in Monday.
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Green’s legal team petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in February, but it declined to hear his case.
Crowell & Moring has worked on Mr. Green’s case pro bono since 2008. Crowell secured Mr. Green’s release from death row in 2009.
On July 20, 2018, Crowell secured a critical victory in the case when a federal district court in Orlando, Fla., granted Mr. Green’s petition for habeas corpus and ordered that he be released or provided a new trial.
The court found that Mr. Green had been wrongfully convicted and his constitutional rights were violated when Brevard County, Florida, prosecutors withheld witness interview notes that said the first two responding law enforcement officers told the prosecutor that they concluded the victim’s ex-girlfriend—not Mr. Green—committed the crime.
In April 2021, Mr. Green was released from prison on conditional release (house arrest) while his case was pending appeal. While free over the past two years, Mr. Green has held full-time employment, become part of a church community, and spent time with family—including meeting grandkids for the first time.
The state of Florida appealed the decision, and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Mr. Green’s victory. The Supreme Court declined to take up Mr. Green’s case on February 27, 2023. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District for Florida ordered Mr. Green to return to custody of the Florida Department of Corrections to complete his sentence.
On April 17, 2023, Mr. Green will surrender himself to the Florida Department of Corrections.
Crowell & Moring, statement
“His options are twofold. First parole, and if parole is not successful, then clemency, and we’re pursuing both of those options and we’re going to keep fighting,” said attorney Keith Harrison from Crowell & Moring.
When Green’s conviction was overturned, a federal judge said prosecutors withheld information that officers suspected the victim’s ex girlfriend may have been the shooter.
“The first two responding officers who were at the crime scene and observed the crime scene evidence told the prosecutor they believe the ex girlfriend did it. They refused to look at her, they refused to investigate that possibility,” said Crowell & Moring Attorney Jeane Thomas.
Green’s lawyers called this an example of racial bias and injustice within the justice system.
“Somebody said a Black guy did it, and everyone believed it,” Harrison said.
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