A man who's spent more than 25 years on Alabama's death row for the murder of an off-duty sheriff's deputy could get a new trial after a district attorney said that "justice demands" it.
The evidence against Toforest Johnson "has unraveled over 20 years" and his 1998 conviction "cannot be justified or allowed to stand," Jefferson County DA Danny Carr wrote in court papers Monday, the Associated Press reported.
Carr, elected in 2018, has supported a new trial for Johnson since 2020 and filed a "friend of the court" brief on his behalf following a formal review of his case, according to the al.com website, which was first to report it.
Carr said credible witnesses placed Johnson elsewhere when Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff William Hardy was shot twice in the head while working a part-time security job at the Crown Sterling Suites hotel in Birmingham on July 19, 1995.
In addition, Carr said, physical evidence contradicts the key witness against Johnson, a woman who received a $5,000 reward after testifying that she eavesdropped on a three-way phone call during which she overheard Johnson confess to Hardy's murder.
"A thorough review and investigation of the entire case leaves no confidence in the integrity of Johnson's conviction. The interest of justice demands that Johnson be granted a new trial," Carr wrote.
The DA's filing marked the latest move in a long-running legal battle in which former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, former Chief Justice Drayton Nabers and several former judges and prosecutors have also called for a new trial for Johnson, AP said.
The lead prosecutor at Johnson's trial also "now has such grave concerns" that he supports a new trial, Carr said.
in 2022, the Alabama attorney general's office asked a judge to deny Johnson's petition for a new trial, saying that "Mr. Carr's opinion that Johnson should receive a new trial is just that, his opinion."
A spokesperson for Attorney General Steve Marshall didn't immediately return a request for comment from HNGN on Tuesday.
