the states case relied entirely on a woman who said that she overheard a three-way jail phone call in which a man referred to himself as toforest johnson admitted to the crime. the woman had never met mr. johnson, and she did not know his voice. but her testimony was enough for the jury to convict. it turns out that the woman was paid $5,000 for her testimony after the trial, a factor which was never disclosed to mr. johnson or his lawyers. in fact, his lawyers did not find out until 2003, and did not have proof until 2019 when the state turned over this a copy of the check and a former signed by the judge authorizing the payment of $5,000. johnson s legal representation works against him as well. according to the washington post, johnson s attorney who admitted in a court filing that he lacked the necessary experience for a capital case. the lawyer wrote, the
chambers accusations should have been painfully and obviously false. but apparently they were not. both men went to trial for capital murder. just ahead of the trial, the estate offered him immunity if he would say that to forrest johnson was the one who murdered the officer. he refused. he told his attorney quote, i see that they won t charge me if he said i did it if it were the true i would say it in the heartbeat but i am not lying for anyone, including the cops. ford s trial ended in a hung jury. that favorite acquittal. johnson story went on and the witness who told 300 lies wasn t even the worst of it. johnson was eventually sentenced to death after a laughably poor case. as a former chief justice in the supreme court put it, there was no physical evidence, no eyewitness testimony, no police confession.
time. and they tend not to sort of, once they ruled on an issue they re not going to, it s very difficult to give and go back and look at a later. but i do think we use it is very important. right now, he is caught in the system. and the alabama courts are sort of limited by case law and omitted by these post conviction rules about how they have to listen to some of these evidence. i don t get excuses the ruling but it is, it sort of explains it. the album attorney general and the 11 of governor don t have those excuses. they could end this tomorrow. they could free this guy and mr. johnson and end this injustice tomorrow. and why they have an after, even before my article, there s been publicity about this case. why it s been three years. there s just a sense of urgency and i think that s really what s unforgivable here. yeah, they ve got the same evidence that you know about. bradley, thanks for reporting on this case and keeping it in the front four from four. us radley balko is a
they publicly expressed disappointment in the trial. one said, quote, when you look back at all of 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 all very disturbing to read all of this now. johnson s defense now has ten witnesses who put him in a different part of town at the time of the murder. and yet justice is not any closer. this week, the alabama court of criminal appeals rejected johnson s claim that prosecutors committed misconduct. so, the court upheld his conviction. despite that setback, johnson still stands a chance at an entirely new trial, but alabama s governor and attorney general could easily end this all right now. the governor could pardon johnson, the attorney general could drop the case, but so far they have not. why? what is the holdup? the reporter who helped bring this case to national attention joins us after the break. joins us after the break
and when they re really certain that the person is innocent. so as i started doing more and more reporting on the case in talking to the attorneys who were involved. it just became clearer and clearer that this was a real injustice that had gone 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