defendants attorney does not have the expertise in criminal investigation worked investigate the facts and interviewed the witnesses surrounding the alleged crime with which the defendant is charged. the defendants attorney has no former shining in criminal investigation, nor do they have the capabilities and time to interview all of the potential witnesses and conduct all of the investigation necessary and essential to provide the defendant with an adequate defense. and the quote. no experience, no training, no time to investigate. it trifecta of trial disaster. the court later agreed to give him a private investigator. they only provided funds for someone, well, someone no one would want. johnson s current lawyer is described as, quote, a brain damage, alcoholic, racist, suicidal, homeless men who had already been fired from at least one capital case from incompetence, have been operating without a business base license for at least five, years and could barely manage
unaddressed. so all of this stuff that i tried to outline, things that you wrote about that show all of the things that seem to be wrong about having but convicted mr. johnson. it all became very narrow this week because the alabama court of appeals ruled against mr. johnson s claim of prosecutorial misconduct. because the money paid to a key witness in this trial. that seems to be one little piece of this whole thing. but for mr. johnson, it s a complete setback. what is his best chance for getting justice when so many little things went wrong to get him the death penalty? this is one of the huge problems with our system. so once the jury returns a guilty verdict in the case, the system just switches from a presumption of innocence to prioritizing the preserving the finality of the verdict. and the idea here is that we want to preserve jury verdicts, particularly guilty verdicts because if we let, if we start overturning them left and right
friend, and he is the man who named johnson as the one who pulled the trigger. she came forward as a potential witness only after the governor s office announced a 10,000 dollar award for anyone who gave information leading to an arrest. her mother told police she had information about the murder, but she did not. at that point he was in the position of either providing information, or doing jail time for lying about it. she later reported feeling pressured to give some kind of information. before one of his criminal trials, chambers even admitted that she had lied. she said that she had done so because of that pressure. quote, they was yelling at me, you know. don t you know you can go to jail for this? and that s all i was thinking. that s all i had put in my mind, jail. i don t want to go, so after he was putting all the pressure on, me i went on and said that i was there. maybe if i would go on and say i was there, maybe all the threats and everything will end. and a quote.
his own day to day affairs. end quote. perfect guy for the job. now that all of this information about this botched case come to light, numerous people want this justice for toforest johnson. former chief justice of the alabama supreme court, he has come out against the case. he asks quote, why is toforest johnson still on alabama s death row? overtime, the state s case has fallen apart, and there is no substantial evidence that mr. johnson is innocent. the district attorney in birmingham believe the lead prosecutor from mr. johnson s 1998 case supports a new trial. the former attorney general has also come out against his conviction in an op-ed for the washington post where he writes, as a lifelong defender of the death penalty, i do not lightly say what follows. an innocent man is trapped on alabama s death row. three jurors who voted to convict johnson have also called for the jefferson county circuit court to throw out johnson s conviction.
it s about overly aggressive law enforcement, a soup pine judiciary and almost comically ineffective representation. and how all of these things remain on death row who nearly everyone now agrees is innocent. even the man who prosecuted him now doubts his guilt. it s a story about the lives ruined along the way. and it s about the murder of a much like deputy that because of all this, remains unsolved. all of those aspects of the story were true three years ago and given a setback to mr. johnson s case this week one of state appeals court upheld his conviction, they remain true today. the case is far from over, though. the district attorney is trying to get a new trial. alabama s governor could pardon johnson. and the attorney general could drop the case. joining us now is readily bilk, oh he s the washington post columnist who wrote that piece for the washington post and help johnson s case corner national tension. mr. bell co-, thank you for being here tonight and thank you for bring