Alabama District Attorney Files Amicus Brief in Support of New Trial for Toforest Johnson

On May 20, 2024, Jefferson County, Alabama District Attorney Danny Carr asked a cir­cuit judge to grant a new tri­al to Toforest Johnson (cen­ter), an Alabama death row pris­on­er whose con­vic­tion DA Carr believes is ​“fun­da­men­tal­ly unre­li­able.” This extra­or­di­nary request is the lat­est in a series of appeals for Mr. Johnson, who was sen­tenced to death in 1998 for the 1995 mur­der of Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff William Hardy but has always main­tained his inno­cence. ​“A thor­ough review and inves­ti­ga­tion of the entire case leaves no con­fi­dence in the integri­ty of [Mr.] Johnson’s con­vic­tion,” DA Carr wrote. ​“The inter­est of jus­tice demands that [Mr.] Johnson be grant­ed a new tri­al.” DA Carr ini­tial­ly filed a motion request­ing a new tri­al for Mr. Johnson in 2020, voic­ing sim­i­lar con­cerns over the valid­i­ty of his con­vic­tion. The United States Supreme Court declined to hear Mr. Johnson’s case in October 2023.

Mr. Johnson was con­vict­ed in the mur­der of Deputy Sheriff Hardy, who was killed in a hotel park­ing lot, despite his main­te­nance that he was at a night­club across town. His con­vic­tion relied large­ly on tes­ti­mo­ny from Violet Ellison, who claimed to have lis­tened to phone calls between her daugh­ter and heard some­one at Jefferson County Jail who iden­ti­fied him­self as ​“Toforest” con­fess to the shoot­ing. DA Carr wrote that Mr. Johnson’s orig­i­nal pros­e­cu­tor has acknowl­edged that the case hinged on Ms. Ellison’s tes­ti­mo­ny and that ​“nobody con­tests that [Ms.] Ellison is the key to [Mr.] Johnson’s con­vic­tion and the rea­son he is on death row today.” In 2008, sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als sub­mit­ted affi­davits in sup­port of Mr. Johnson, claim­ing they had seen him across town on the night of the mur­der and in 2022, infor­ma­tion was revealed indi­cat­ing Ms. Ellison was a key wit­ness in sev­er­al oth­er crim­i­nal cas­es for the State. ​“We also know that [Ms.] Ellison was not believed by law enforce­ment ini­tial­ly and that a dif­fer­ent the­o­ry of the case that con­tra­dict­ed her account was pur­sued after [Mr.] Johnson’s tri­al and that the lead pros­e­cu­tor now has such grave con­cerns about [Ms.] Ellison that he sup­ports a new tri­al for [Mr.] Johnson,” DA Carr wrote.

Lawyers for Mr. Johnson have long argued that the pros­e­cu­tion sup­pressed evi­dence that Ms. Ellison had knowl­edge of the $5,000 reward being offered in the case and tes­ti­fied in hopes of receiv­ing that mon­ey. In a 2018 hear­ing in Jefferson County, a copy of the check that was paid to Ms. Ellison sur­faced after the US Supreme Court sent Mr. Johnson’s case back to state court. The Circuit court ruled that Mr. Johnson’s legal team could not estab­lish that Ms. Ellison knew there was a reward when she talked with the police.

Former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, for­mer Chief Justice Drayton Nabers, and sev­er­al for­mer judges and pros­e­cu­tors have also voiced sup­port for a new tri­al for Mr. Johnson, as well as three for­mer jurors on the case. Shanaye Pool, Mr. Johnson’s daugh­ter, was grate­ful for DA Carr’s sup­port of her father. ​“Our hope is that the courts will agree with him. Our hope is for our fam­i­ly to final­ly be reunit­ed,” said Ms. Poole.