MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) A number of former judges and prosecutors including two previous Alabama chief justices and a state attorney general have joined those seeking a new trial for a death row inmate amid questions about his conviction more than 20 years ago.
Former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, former chief justices Sonny Hornsby and Drayton Nabers and several former judges and prosecutors have submitted briefs supporting a new trial for Toforest Johnson who was convicted of the 1995 murder of a deputy sheriff.
“The petition before the Court is an extraordinary and rare situation in which the evidence of constitutional violations and Mr. Johnson’s innocence is genuinely overwhelming,” wrote attorneys representing Nabers, former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Ralph Cook and others.
The former attorney general of Alabama on Tuesday joined a chorus of former prosecutors and judges in urging that a death row inmate’s murder conviction be set aside in light of facts “that point to the outright innocence of the defendant.”
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