New Eyes On Alabama Death Row Case After Integrity Review Raises Questions
By Debbie Elliott
April 5, 2021
Toforest Johnson was 25 years old when he was sentenced to death in 1998 for the killing of a sheriff’s deputy outside Birmingham, Ala. His oldest daughter, Shanaye Poole, now 29, remembers being in the courtroom.
“I just wanted to talk to him. He looked so handsome. He had a suit on. And of course, I didn’t really know what was going on. I may have been 4 or 5 years old at the time,” she says. “I saw him walk away, and that was the last day of his freedom.”