Jurors who Voted to Convict Toforest Johnson Now Support New Trial

Three mem­bers of the jury who vot­ed to con­vict and sen­tence Toforest Johnson (pic­tured, cen­ter) to death in his cap­i­tal tri­al in Birmingham in 1998 are now urg­ing Alabama​’s courts to grant him a new tri­al. Having learned of sig­nif­i­cant pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct dur­ing Johnson’s tri­al for the mur­der of a sheriff’s deputy, includ­ing the rev­e­la­tion that a key wit­ness lied to col­lect reward mon­ey, Jay Crane, Matthew Young, and Monique Hicks all say that Johnson’s con­vic­tion should be overturned.

“I think we con­vict­ed an inno­cent man,” Hicks said. 

Johnson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death on charges that he mur­dered Deputy Sheriff William G. Hardy. No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked him to the crime, and mul­ti­ple ali­bi wit­ness­es placed him at a night­club on the oth­er side of Birmingham when the crime occurred. Over the course of four dif­fer­ent legal pro­ceed­ings, pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed at least five con­flict­ing the­o­ries of the crime, claim­ing sep­a­rate­ly that both Johnson and his co-defen­dant, Ardragus Ford, com­mit­ted the killing. Johnson’s con­vic­tion hinged on the shift­ing tes­ti­mo­ny of 15-year-old Yolanda Chambers, an alleged eye­wit­ness whom police had repeat­ed­ly threat­ened with impris­on­ment if she did not coop­er­ate, and alleged ​“ear­wit­ness,” Violet Ellison. Ellison claimed she had been eaves­drop­ping on a phone call her daugh­ter had placed to the prison and over­heard a man call­ing him­self ​“Toforest” con­fess to the crime. Prosecutors did not dis­close to Johnson’s lawyers or the jury that Ellison had been paid $5,000 in reward mon­ey for her tes­ti­mo­ny. Nor did the jurors know that two oth­er wit­ness­es were jailed after refus­ing to tes­ti­fy to the prosecution’s ver­sion of the case.

The three jurors say that learn­ing of the prosecution’s com­pet­ing the­o­ries of the crime, and of Ellison’s pay­ment for her tes­ti­mo­ny, would have changed their votes. ​“I can’t go back and change my vote, but that’s why I’m speak­ing out,” said Hicks. ​“When you look back at all the stuff the jury did not know, I feel like we were used like pawns in a chess game, not even know­ing we were being used. It is very dis­turb­ing to read all this now.” 

Crane said, ​“This is sup­posed to be an hon­est sys­tem. It’s sup­posed to work, and they (pros­e­cu­tors) mis­led us. I am very dis­ap­point­ed. And I feel sad for the victim’s fam­i­ly because they haven’t got­ten any jus­tice. They don’t have the right per­son in prison.”

Young said that the undis­closed pay­ment to Ellison raised doubts for him. ​“That’s a lot of mon­ey,” he said. ​“Is she just after the mon­ey? How truth­ful is the tes­ti­mo­ny? I cer­tain­ly think that would be some­thing that would need to be dis­cussed and considered.”

Hicks said that read­ing about the exon­er­a­tion of Alabama death-row pris­on­er Anthony Ray Hinton made her won­der about Johnson’s case. Not long after she heard Hinton’s sto­ry, she saw media cov­er­age of the issues raised in Johnson’s appeal. ​“I just sobbed,” Hicks said. ​“I feel a lot of grief, shame, and guilt for hav­ing been a part of this. I feel grief deep in my soul. I can’t imag­ine what this has been like for him and his fam­i­ly. He needs a new trial.”

Young expressed sim­i­lar regret at hav­ing unwit­ting­ly played a role in a pos­si­ble injus­tice. ​“I guess I always took for grant­ed that the court sys­tem would do its job, but what makes it even more upset­ting is the fact that he might be total­ly inno­cent, not even asso­ci­at­ed with the crime at all,” said Young. ​“That’s trou­bling, that I had some sort of role in it, even though I was just try­ing to do my civic duty and work off the infor­ma­tion I was pre­sent­ed. It’s dis­turb­ing to know the sys­tem didn’t work for him. I ful­ly sup­port him get­ting a new trial.”

Richard Jaffe, who rep­re­sent­ed Ford at tri­al, said “[a]ll of the evi­dence, includ­ing phone records and wit­ness­es, clear­ly showed that [Chambers] couldn’t have wit­nessed the Hardy mur­der. Her accu­sa­tions should have been painful­ly and obvi­ous­ly false.” Ford, who was tried sep­a­rate­ly, was acquit­ted of the mur­der. However, Johnson’s court-appoint­ed lawyer failed to present evi­dence rebut­ting Chambers’ tes­ti­mo­ny and Ellison’s tes­ti­mo­ny per­suad­ed the jury to convict.

Johnson’s case is cur­rent­ly under appeal. He has received sup­port for a new tri­al from more than a dozen for­mer Alabama pros­e­cu­tors, judges, and state bar pres­i­dents, as well as Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr. Former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, a self-described ​“life­long defend­er of the death penal­ty,” is among those call­ing to over­turn Johnson’s con­vic­tion. “[T]he guy is not guilty,” Baxley said. ​“The guy is innocent.”