defense. end quote. no experience. no training. no time to investigate. a trifecta of trial disaster. when 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 lawyers describe this p i. as quote a brain-damaged alcoholic racist suicidal homeless man who had already been fired from at leaf one capital case for incompetence, had been operating without a business license for at least five years, and could barely manage his own day to day affairs. end quote. the guy for the job. now that all of this information about this botched case has come to light, numerous people want justice for toforest. and aforementioned former chief justice of the alabama supreme court, he s come out against the case. he asks, quote, why is toforest johnson still on alabama s death row? over time, the state s case has fallen apart and there s now
claiming they had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that, i don t know, both of them did it? either of them did it? one of them did it? they didn t know. so they let the jurors decide. that happened based on the word of one unreliable witness, yolanda chambers and even the prosecutors admitted in the case that since the 1995 murder, chambers had told more than 300 lies about who was involved, and what she knew. that is the person who is the primary witness in the case against toforest johnson s friend and named johnson as the man who pulled the trigger and she came forward as a potential witness and only after the governor s office announced a $10,000 reward 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, she was in a position of either providing
information, or doing jail time for lying about it. she later reported feeling pressure to give some kind of information. before one of toforest johnson s criminal trial, chambers admitted that she had lied, and she said 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 they was putting all the pressure on me, i went on and said i was there. maybe if i go on and say i was there, maybe all of the threats and everything will end. end quote. the lawyer says chamber s accusations should have been painfully and obviously false. apparently they were not. both men went to trial for capital murder. just ahead of the trial, the state tried to offer him immunity if we say that toforest johnson was the one who murdered
all of those aspects of the story were true three years ago, and given a setback to mr. johnson s case, this week, when the state appeals court upheld his conviction, they remain true today. the case is far from over though. the district attorney has tried to get a new trial. alabama s governor could pardon johnson, and the attorney general could drop the case. joining us now is bradley velcro, the washington post columnist who wrote that piece for the washington post and helped johnson s case garner national attention. thank you for being hered to tonight. and thank you for bringing the story to the nation s attention. how did you get started on this? what first drew you toforest johnson s case and claims many people on death row who claim to not be there for the right reasons. part of my work on the criminal justice system, part of that is reaching out to defense attorney, and keeping in regular touch with a few of them throughout the country, and so a couple of attorneys that
the officer. he refused. he told his attorney quote, i see where they won t charge me if i say he did it. if that were the truth, i with say it in a heartbeat but i am not lying for anybody, including the cops. agrgus ford s trial went in a hung jurl and johnson s story went on and that story of the witness who told 300 lies wasn t the worst of it. johnson was eventually sentenced to death after a laughbly poor case. as a former chief justice of the state supreme court put it in an op-ed, quote, there was no physical evidence, no eyewitness testimony, no police confession, the state s case relied entirely on a woman who said she overheard a three-way jail phone call in which a man who referred to himself as toforest admitted to the crime. the woman had never met mr. johnson, and she didn t know his voice. but her testimony was enough for the jury to convict. turns out the woman was paid