On June 1, for­mer Tennessee death row inmate Erskine Johnson (pic­tured; now known as Ndume Olatushani) was freed after serv­ing near­ly 27 years in prison, 19 of which were spent on death row. Johnson, who main­tained his inno­cence through­out the process, was sen­tenced to death for the 1983 mur­der of a gro­cer in Memphis. In 2004, he was resen­tenced to life in prison after the state Supreme Court found that pros­e­cu­tors did not dis­close impor­tant infor­ma­tion to the defense. In December 2011, Johnson was award­ed a new tri­al by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals in light of new infor­ma­tion indi­cat­ing state’s wit­ness­es may have been moti­vat­ed to pro­tect oth­er sus­pects. If the jury had known of this motive, it could have weak­ened the wit­ness­es’ cred­i­bil­i­ty, and might have result­ed in a dif­fer­ent ver­dict. Johnson entered an Alford plea (a guilty plea in which the defen­dant accepts that the weight of the evi­dence would like­ly result in a guilty ver­dict, but still main­tains his actu­al inno­cence) to sec­ond-degree mur­der, in exchange for a sen­tence of time already served. Johnson is now 54, hav­ing lived half his life incar­cer­at­ed. Prison offi­cials called him an exemplary prisoner.

(L. Buser, ​“Memphis man released after 27 years in prison,” Commercial Appeal, June 2, 2012; see also Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Newsletter, June 6, 2012). See Innocence, includ­ing a list of sim­i­lar cas­es. Listen to DPIC’s pod­cast on Innocence.

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