Investigation Exposes History of Misconduct by Leading South Georgia Homicide Prosecutor in Death Penalty Cases

A promi­nent South Georgia pros­e­cu­tor, laud­ed for his suc­cess in cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions, has a his­to­ry of mis­con­duct in those cas­es, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution inves­tiga­tive report has dis­closed. Longtime Brunswick Judicial Circuit Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson III, who joined the five-coun­ty prosecutor’s office in 1977, ​“has a dark lega­cy of prob­lem cas­es,” the paper reports, includ­ing repeat­ed­ly with­hold­ing evi­dence from the defense in death penalty cases. 

The inves­tiga­tive report was pub­lished two weeks after a Glynn County court over­turned the con­vic­tion of Dennis Perry of the mur­ders of two African-American church­go­ers dur­ing a bible study class in 1985. Johnson had cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed Perry even after the lead inves­ti­ga­tors in the case had deter­mined he could not have been at the church at the time of the mur­ders. Johnson pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from the moth­er of Perry’s ex-girl­friend, claim­ing he had told her he planned to kill one of the vic­tims. Johnson with­held evi­dence from the defense that the wit­ness was to receive $12,000 in reward mon­ey for her tes­ti­mo­ny. New DNA evi­dence impli­cates an alter­nate sus­pect, a white man who, the Journal-Constitution inves­ti­ga­tion showed, had bragged that he had killed two ni****rs and had man­u­fac­tured a false ali­bi for the murders.

Johnson fought to pre­vent Perry from receiv­ing a hear­ing on his appeal and then to delay the hear­ing, argu­ing that Perry had waived his appeals in exchange for Johnson drop­ping the death penal­ty after the con­vic­tion. Johnson — who the Journal-Constitution report­ed once said he was “‘direct­ed by God’ to try cas­es and send crim­i­nals to prison” — said of Perry’s appeal, ​“I don’t care what any­body else says. A defen­dant agreed to not appeal, and we’re sup­posed to just roll over? No, our oblig­a­tion is to inves­ti­gate and to oppose the motion because we had an agree­ment.” The court freed Perry July 23, 2020, pend­ing the prosecutor’s a deci­sion on whether to attempt to retry him. 

The Journal-Constitution report detailed numer­ous instances in which Johnson — whom the state pros­e­cu­tors asso­ci­a­tion once named the top assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney in the state — had with­held key phys­i­cal evi­dence and failed to inform the defense about ben­e­fits wit­ness­es received for their tes­ti­mo­ny. Brian Kammer, a pro­fes­sor at Mercer University School of Law and a for­mer direc­tor of the Georgia Death Penalty Resource Center, said that ​“the Brunswick Judicial Circuit has been ter­ri­bly ill-served by Johnson’s brazen mis­con­duct, yet he is aston­ish­ing­ly still employed.” 

In a state­ment, District Attorney Jackie Johnson defend­ed her chief deputy, claim­ing that ​“John has done more for vic­tims of vio­lent crime and pub­lic safe­ty than any­one in South Georgia.”

One of the defen­dants Johnson pros­e­cut­ed, Jimmy Meders, came with­in hours of exe­cu­tion in January 2020 before the Georgia parole board grant­ed him clemen­cy. Meders was con­vict­ed of armed rob­bery and mur­der in 1989 and sen­tenced to death. Meders stead­fast­ly main­tained his inno­cence, tes­ti­fy­ing that the mur­der was actu­al­ly com­mit­ted by the prosecution’s key wit­ness, Bill Arnold. 

Meders told police that he and Arnold had been togeth­er in the hours pre­ced­ing the mur­der and that Arnold had fired Meders’ weapon into trucks at two sep­a­rate loca­tions. Arnold denied ever han­dling Meders’ gun. Johnson, who was aware of these claims, failed to report to the judge and jury that wit­ness­es at each of the loca­tions where Arnold had alleged­ly fired shots had called 911 to report the inci­dent. Jurors specif­i­cal­ly asked the judge dur­ing delib­er­a­tions whether or not there were police reports filed about the gun­fire. When asked about his deci­sion to con­ceal the police reports, Johnson not­ed that ​“obvi­ous­ly, from the ques­tion, it was impor­tant to the jury. But the ques­tion is whether it was impor­tant to me and the answer is no.” 

During the appeals process, Meders sought DNA test­ing of the gun to estab­lish the iden­ti­ty of the shoot­er. Georgia pros­e­cu­tors opposed his motion and the courts refused to autho­rize the testing. 

Johnson also com­mit­ted mis­con­duct in the cap­i­tal tri­al of Larry Jenkins, a then-17-year old boy who was sen­tenced to death in 1998 for the mur­ders of a local laun­dro­mat own­er and his son. In that case, Johnson failed to dis­close that the star wit­ness in his case had giv­en state­ments to police that con­tra­dict­ed her tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny — includ­ing that she didn’t rec­og­nize the per­son whom she saw drop the mur­der weapon. The pros­e­cu­tion also unlaw­ful­ly with­held from the defense evi­dence that impli­cat­ed anoth­er sus­pect. In 2005, a DeKalb County judge found that the pros­e­cu­tion had ​“com­mit­ted inten­tion­al mis­con­duct” and grant­ed Jenkins a new trial. 

A ​“full spec­trum of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct” by Johnson led to the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of Georgia death-row exoneree Lawrence William (Larry) Lee. No phys­i­cal evi­dence impli­cat­ed Lee in the 1986 mur­ders of Clifford, Nina, and Jerold Jones. Nonetheless, Johnson obtained a con­vic­tion and death sen­tence based upon what the Butts County Superior Court lat­er described as ​“a weak pros­e­cu­tion case depen­dent for its suc­cess on the believ­abil­i­ty of two wit­ness­es unfa­vored in the law and by the pub­lic — a jail­house snitch and a co-con­spir­a­tor.” The court found that the pros­e­cu­tion lied to the defense and the court that it had no excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence in its files, while con­ceal­ing evi­dence that con­tra­dict­ed the tes­ti­mo­ny or under­mined the cred­i­bil­i­ty of each of its key witnesses. 

The pros­e­cu­tion also uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly denied the defense access to the phys­i­cal evi­dence and then pre­sent­ed evi­dence and argu­ment it knew to be false that mis­led the jury into believ­ing that Lee had been in pos­ses­sion of guns stolen from the vic­tims’ home. The pros­e­cu­tion also con­cealed evi­dence that linked two oth­er sus­pects to the mur­ders and sub­se­quent­ly lost or destroyed 47 latent fin­ger­prints and 15 unknown hairs recov­ered from the scene that did not match Lee. 

One of the key pieces of evi­dence was a rug from the fam­i­ly room of the Jones’ home that could have been test­ed for foren­sic evi­dence. An August 1999 memo signed by Johnson instruct­ed the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to destroy the rug, adding ​“even if the case were to have to be retried, I would not expect this item to be intro­duced into evi­dence or need­ed.” He lat­er gave sworn tes­ti­mo­ny claim­ing he had not instruct­ed the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to destroy any of the evi­dence in Lee’s case.

“John has been the big dog of the field” in the Brunswick Judicial District prosecutor’s office, said local defense lawyer, Newell Hamilton, who defend­ed three cap­i­tal cas­es against Johnson. ​“He’s extreme­ly effec­tive in a court­room. … But nobody real­ly had any con­trol over him. I don’t know how he was allowed to stay and keep up with his shenanigans.”