Former Georgia Death-Row Prisoner Reaches Deal Securing His Release After Serving 43 Years for a Murder He Says He Did Not Commit

Johnny Lee Gates (pic­tured) is free, 43 years after being sen­tenced to death in Georgia for a mur­der he has stead­fast­ly main­tained he did not commit. 

On May 15, 2020, Gates entered a so-called ​“Alford plea” on charges of manslaugh­ter and armed rob­bery, mean­ing that he did not admit guilt, but con­ced­ed that pros­e­cu­tors had enough evi­dence to con­vict him. He was sen­tenced to 20 years on each charge, but was cred­it­ed with time served and immediately released. 

“I’ve fought for 43 years for this day,” Gates said. ​“I always had faith it would come, even when oth­ers weren’t sure. I am an inno­cent man. I did not com­mit this crime. What hap­pened to me is some­thing that should nev­er hap­pen to any per­son. But I am not bit­ter. I thank God that I am here, and I am hap­py to be free.” 

Gates had spent the first 25 years of his incar­cer­a­tion on death row. His death sen­tence was vacat­ed in 2003 based on evi­dence of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. At that time, he was grant­ed a jury tri­al to deter­mine whether his intel­lec­tu­al impair­ments made him inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. When that tri­al con­clud­ed in a mis­tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tion and defense reached an agree­ment to resen­tence Gates to life without parole.

The Georgia Supreme Court had unan­i­mous­ly ordered a new tri­al for Gates in March, find­ing that DNA con­tained on phys­i­cal evi­dence that police and pros­e­cu­tors had with­held for decades raised ​“sig­nif­i­cant doubt” as to Gates’ guilt. That rul­ing set the stage for the plea deal and Gates’ release.

Gates has main­tained his inno­cence in the 1976 mur­der of Katharina Wright for more than four decades. He ini­tial­ly con­fessed to the crime, but his attor­neys said that detec­tives coerced the con­fes­sion and took advan­tage of Gates’ naivete and low IQ. Prosecutors with­held key evi­dence in the case from the defense and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly removed African Americans from the jury because of their race. 

During the appeal process, Gates’ lawyers dis­cov­ered jury selec­tion notes from sev­en death-penal­ty cas­es tried by his pros­e­cu­tors, which showed that they had sys­tem­i­cal­ly exclud­ed Black prospec­tive jurors from every cap­i­tal tri­al to empan­el all-white or near­ly all-white juries. The pros­e­cu­tors’ notes from Gates’ case showed that they had tracked the race of jurors, struck every black juror they could, and repeat­ed­ly wrote deroga­to­ry com­ments about black peo­ple and black prospec­tive jurors, whom they described as ​“slow,” ​“old +igno­rant,” ​“cocky,” ​“con artist,” ​“hos­tile,” and ​“fat.” White jurors were marked with the let­ter ​“W,” while black jurors were marked with the let­ter ​“N.” A Georgia Tech math­e­mat­ics pro­fes­sor pro­vid­ed expert tes­ti­mo­ny that the prob­a­bil­i­ty that black jurors had been removed for race-neu­tral rea­sons was infin­i­tes­i­mal­ly small — 0.000000000000000000000000000004 percent. 

Gates, who is black, was tried, con­vict­ed, and sen­tenced to death by an all-white jury in 1977. As ear­ly as 1991, DPIC had report­ed that Columbus pros­e­cu­tors had reg­u­lar­ly empan­eled all-white juries against black cap­i­tal defen­dants, including Gates.

Critical evi­dence in the case was uncov­ered in 2015, when two Georgia Innocence Project interns reviewed the prosecution’s case file and dis­cov­ered a mani­la enve­lope that con­tained neck­ties and a bathrobe belt alleged­ly used to bind the vic­tim. Prosecutors had claimed for years that no phys­i­cal evi­dence exist­ed in the case. 

If the prosecution’s the­o­ry of the crime — which assert­ed that the per­pe­tra­tor had act­ed alone and had been bare­hand­ed when he tied up the vic­tim — was true, the killer would have left DNA from skin cells on the fab­ric. However, DNA test­ing showed that Gates’ DNA was not present on the items. The appeals court found that, while the state’s evi­dence of Gates’ guilt appeared strong in the absence of the DNA results, he ​“could have much more effec­tive­ly coun­tered” the state’s case with the now-avail­able DNA evidence.

Claire Gilbert, one of Gates’ attor­neys from the Georgia Innocence Project said, ​“Today, in the wake of the Georgia Supreme Court’s deci­sion to vacate his con­vic­tion based on excul­pa­to­ry DNA evi­dence, Johnny Gates — an inno­cent man — is free at last. Mr. Gates has sur­vived the unimag­in­able: 43 long years in prison for a crime he did not com­mit, with 26 of those years on death row. We are thrilled to wel­come Mr. Gates home, and to intro­duce him to our com­mu­ni­ty of released clients.”