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Inmate Freed After 14 Years On Death Row

by Jarrett Martineau | April 2, 2008 at 06:22 pm

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What an upheaval of one's life it must be to go from imprisonment and a death row sentence to being a free man, overnight.

But that is an adjustment that I'm sure freed inmate Glen Edward Chapman is only too happy to make. His murder convictions were thrown out of court today after a Superior Court ruled that "Chapman was offered ineffective assistance from his original attorneys and that evidence was lost, destroyed or withheld. "

RALEIGH, N.C. — After 14 years on death row, an inmate whose murder convictions were thrown out because investigators withheld evidence walked out of prison Wednesday a free man.

Glen Edward Chapman, 41, was released from Central Prison shortly after 3 p.m. and ate a bologna and cheese sandwich — a meal his mother used to make. He used a cell phone for the first time to talk to his father, sister and nieces he's never met.

"I'm still shocked, but I feel good," Chapman said. "I've still got a lot of adapting to do. A lot of things have changed, and I don't want to try and rush nothing."

Chapman was granted a new trial last year after a judge determined investigators mishandled his case. Messages left at the Catawba County district attorney's office seeking comment on the decision to drop the murder charges and grant Chapman's release were not immediately returned.

"I have no bitterness," Chapman said when asked about the investigators who worked his case. "I feel a lot better without it. I think I'll prosper better without it."