Current:Home > Stocks‘Justice demands’ new trial for death row inmate, Alabama district attorney says-LoTradeCoin
‘Justice demands’ new trial for death row inmate, Alabama district attorney says
View Date:2024-12-23 20:05:41
An Alabama district attorney on Monday asked a judge to order a new trial for a death row inmate, saying that a review found that the 1998 conviction was flawed and “cannot be justified or allowed to stand.”
Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr filed a brief expressing his support for Toforest Johnson’s bid to receive a new trial. Carr has supported a new trial since 2020, but the latest filing detailed the findings of a post-conviction review of the case.
“A thorough review and investigation of the entire case leaves no confidence in the integrity of Johnson’s conviction. The interest of justice demands that Johnson be granted a new trial,” Carr wrote in the brief.
Johnson has been on Alabama’s death row since 1998 after he was convicted in the 1995 killing of Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff William Hardy, who was shot twice in the head while working off-duty security at a hotel. However, Carr, who was elected as the county’s district attorney in 2018, wrote that the “evidence in this case has unraveled over 20 years.”
Carr said that credible alibi witnesses place Johnson elsewhere at the time of the crime. He said there are multiple reasons to doubt the key prosecution witness, a woman who “claimed she overheard Johnson confess to the murder on a three-way phone call on which she was eavesdropping.”
Carr said that the “physical evidence contradicts” her account. He said she was paid $5,000 for her testimony and had been a witness in multiple cases.
“The lead prosecutor now has such grave concerns about (her) account that he supports a new trial for Johnson,” Carr wrote of the prosecutor who led the case in the 1990s.
The filing was the latest development in the long-running legal effort to win a new trial in the case that has garnered national attention and is the subject of a podcast. Former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, former Chief Justice Drayton Nabers, and several former judges and prosecutors submitted briefs to the circuit court or wrote editorials supporting a new trial for Johnson.
The current petition was filed in 2020 but was paused as other appeals played out in different courts.
The Alabama attorney general’s office has not responded to the latest filing. The office in 2022 asked a judge to dismiss Johnson’s petition: “Mr. Carr’s opinion that Johnson should receive a new trial is just that, his opinion,” lawyers for the attorney general’s office wrote in 2022.
Johnson’s daughter, Shanaye Poole, said she is thankful for Carr’s support for her father to receive a new trial.
“Our hope is that the courts will agree with him. Our hope is for our family to finally be reunited,” Poole said. She said her father has always maintained his innocence. “We’ve had to live in a nightmare for so long,” she said.
The Alabama Supreme Court in 2022 upheld a lower court’s decision denying a separate request for a new trial. Johnson’s lawyers had argued the state failed to disclose that the key prosecution witness was paid a reward. The Court of Criminal Appeals in May ruled that Johnson’s attorneys had not established that the witness knew about the reward or was motivated by it.
veryGood! (91658)
Related
- What Just Happened to the Idea of Progress?
- You Don’t Wanna Miss This One Tree Hill Reunion
- 'The Killer' review: Michael Fassbender is a flawed hitman in David Fincher's fun Netflix film
- Nevada men's basketball coach Steve Alford hates arena bats, Wolf Pack players embrace them
- US Open finalist Taylor Fritz talks League of Legends, why he hated tennis and how he copied Sampras
- Independent inquiry launched into shipwreck off Greece that left hundreds of migrants feared dead
- Andre Iguodala named acting executive director of National Basketball Players Association
- America Ferrea urges for improved Latino representation in film during academy keynote
- Can't afford a home? Why becoming a landlord might be the best way to 'house hack.'
- New Mexico energy regulator who led crackdown on methane pollution is leaving her post
Ranking
- Gerry Faust, former Notre Dame football coach, dies at 89
- AJ McLean Reveals Where He and Wife Rochelle Stand 8 Months After Announcing Separation
- The Air Force’s new nuclear stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, has taken its first test flight
- Panel to investigate Maine shooting is established as lawyers serve notice on 20 agencies
- Florida Man Arrested for Cold Case Double Murder Almost 50 Years Later
- 52 years after he sent it home from Vietnam, this veteran was reunited with his box of medals and mementos
- Dignitaries attend funeral of ex-Finnish President Ahtisaari, peace broker and Nobel laureate
- How to talk to older people in your life about scams
Recommendation
-
'Squid Game' creator lost '8 or 9' teeth making Season 1, explains Season 2 twist
-
California authorities seek video, urge patience in investigation into death of Jewish demonstrator
-
TikToker Alix Earle Surprises NFL Player Braxton Berrios With Baecation to Bahamas
-
Mississippi attorney general asks state Supreme Court to set execution dates for 2 prisoners
-
Ex-Duke star Kyle Singler draws concern from basketball world over cryptic Instagram post
-
Baby shark born to single mother – without a father – after apparent parthenogenesis
-
Demonstrators brawl outside LA’s Museum of Tolerance after screening of Hamas attack video
-
Burmese python weighing 198 pounds is captured in Florida by snake wranglers: Watch