Politics and Current
Former judge makes shocking confession after helping send black man to death row based on state-paid witness testimony

A girl who served on the jury that sentenced an Alabama man to death 25 years ago is now calling for a brand new trial due to evidence of potential wrongdoing, saying her role within the 1998 murder conviction “doesn’t allow me to sleep at night.”
Monique Hicks of Prattsville, Alabama, served on the jury that found Toforest Johnson guilty of the murder of Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy William G. “Bill” Hardy, who was shot to death in a Birmingham hotel parking zone in the summertime of 1995 while working off-duty as a security guard. .
Johnson, who’s black, was put on trial three years later, found guilty and sentenced to death based on the questionable testimony of a witness who was paid hundreds of dollars to testify on behalf of the prosecution.

Due to the newly discovered evidence, Hicks claims to regret his role in convicting Johnson, proclaiming his innocence and even asking for forgiveness from his family.
“I asked the Lord to forgive me for causing so much suffering.” She wrote in a guest opinion column published on April 22 on AI.com. “I pray that Mr. Johnson and his family will forgive me as well. In the meantime, I will continue to use my voice to ask for justice.”
In the column, Hicks expresses deep regret, asking: “What responsibility do I even have? “My role in wrongfully convicting an innocent man keeps me up at night.”
The effort to free Johnson has received significant support from celebrity activist Kim Kardashian, in addition to several distinguished legal figures, including the National Innocence Project, which recently filed two amicus briefs in support of a brand new trial for Johnson – one before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the opposite within the Jefferson County Circuit Court in Alabama.
As of May 2024, no execution date has been set for Johnson, who has maintained his innocence since becoming a suspect within the officer’s murder nearly three many years ago when he was 25 and in his prime.
At the time of the murder on July 19, 1995, five suspects as well as to Johnson were ultimately arrested in reference to the fatal shooting, but only Johnson was convicted despite an absence of physical evidence or eyewitnesses to place him on the scene of the crime.
Last yr, Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr conducted a nine-month review of the evidence and concluded that the “interests of justice” required a brand new trial for Johnson, now 50.
“Leadership is not about being right, it is about making things right,” he said at a faith rally in support of Johnson in December 2023.
But state Attorney General Steve Marshall dismissed that investigation, calling it Carr’s “subjective opinion.”
But an appeal filed by Johnson’s lawyers in Jefferson County Circuit Court proves the investigation cannot simply be ignored.
Despite the brand new evidence, Marshall continues to ask the court to prevent the convict from getting a brand new trial and insists that Johnson be sentenced to death sooner moderately than later.
The fundamental obstacle within the state’s case is witness Violet Ellison, who testified within the 1998 trial that she overheard Johnson confess to the officer’s murder during a telephone conversation she overheard as Johnson spoke from prison.
Ellison’s testimony was a key a part of the case that ultimately resulted in Johnson’s conviction, but in 2015 – 17 years after the trial – the state revealed that it had secretly paid Ellison $5,000 for her testimony.
Additionally, Ellison has a questionable record as a witness, as her testimony as a state witness in five other criminal cases resulted in acquittals and dismissals.
Her involvement within the Johnson case led three jurors – including Hicks – to request a brand new trial, stating that they might not have convicted him in the event that they had known concerning the payment to Ellison and her credibility issues.
Other recent evidence also emerged pointing to Johnson’s innocence.
A brand new podcast, “Earwitness,” has brought renewed attention to the case and revealed recent information that would potentially free Johnson after many years behind bars.
In 2023, the podcast found Ellison’s grandchildren, who revealed they didn’t trust her, describing her as willing to do “anything for a dollar.”
According to nearly a dozen witnesses, Johnson and his disabled friend Ardragus Ford were hanging out together at Tee’s Place, a nightclub in downtown Birmingham, on the time Deputy Hardy was killed 4 miles away.
However, a couple of days after the murder, a troubled 15-year-old girl named Yolanda Chambers, who was later joined by the girl who was picked up by Johnson and Ford after the boys left the nightclub, turned each men over to authorities after the sheriff’s decision. the department offers an award.
Although Chambers modified her story multiple times, she initially told investigators that the boys admitted to the ladies that Johnson had “coped out” earlier that evening. Johnson and Ford became everlasting suspects after the primary of Chambers’ many interviews with investigators.
During the trial, through which Chambers emerged as an inconsistent witness, police all but admitted that they were unsure who actually killed Deputy Hardy because they lacked any physical evidence or eyewitness testimony that directly implicated Johnson.
During the trial, prosecutors also presented five conflicting theories concerning the fatal shooting in an attempt to explain the circumstances of Hardy’s death, but stopped in need of drawing any conclusions, suggesting there was no smoking gun.
The lead detective on the case initially testified that Ardragus Ford and one other man, Omar Berry, were chargeable for Hardy’s killing. However, prosecutors modified their theory multiple times over a three-year period, leading to Johnson being the just one found guilty and sentenced to death.

Hicks said she modified her mind about Johnson’s guilt greater than 20 years after she helped send him to death row for the crime.
“After the trial, I returned home and returned to everyday life,” she explained. “I haven’t heard anything else from Toforest Johnson for over two decades. But then I started seeing his case on the news.”
Around this time, in 2023, public officials in Alabama began calling for a retrial of Johnson, which was met with broad support from the likes of Kardashian, who in January shared several infographics about Johnson’s criminal case on Instagram along with her 364 million followers . .
In one post, Kardashian wrote that Johnson was “26. He spent Christmas in prison for against the law he didn’t commit” and posted a link to a petition for help for the man.
Support for Johnson also got here from numerous unlikely places, namely from former state Attorney General Bill Baxley and Birmingham District Attorney Jeff Wallace, who in 1998 prosecuted Johnson for Hardy’s murder.
Earlier in 2014, Wallace testified under oath that he “does not believe the state’s case is very strong because it depends on the testimony of Violet Ellison.”
Baxley, who fought to restore the death penalty as Alabama’s attorney general within the Nineteen Seventies, also said he firmly believed Johnson was innocent, describing him as “trapped” within the legal system.
“Johnson’s murder trial was so riddled with errors and the evidence presented against him so scant that no Alabamian should tolerate his imprisonment, let alone his execution,” he added. Baxley wrote for the Washington Post.
The call to throw out the ruling also drew support from two former Alabama governors and a former Republican state judge.
AND website named in Johnson’s honor also found, which highlighted the variety of advocates and lawmakers who were behind the hassle to free him.
As the momentum built for Johnson, Hicks said she began to grapple with the impact of the jury’s decision on his fate, which led to deep personal reflection and she or he found she could now not ignore what many others were now claiming about Johnson’s innocence. .
Based on her Christian faith, Hicks said she felt moved to express her recent perspective on the case in a column she wrote, calling for a brand new trial for Johnson while emphasizing the necessity for a good and thorough examination of all of the evidence.
“Twenty-five years ago I sat on the jury in a Birmingham courtroom and voted for a man’s death. Prosecutor Jeff Wallace asked me and the opposite jurors to convict defendant Toforest Johnson of murder. He then asked us to sentence Mr. Johnson to death. We did each.
After Wallace, of all people, called for a brand new trial, Hicks said she struggled to come to terms along with her own decision to convict Johnson, which forced her to speak out.
“I remember how young Mr. Johnson looked. And I remember perfectly well that when the verdict was read, I heard loud lamentations in the audience. Now that I am a mother myself, I can only imagine the immense sadness that Mr. Johnson’s mother must have felt. At the time, I took comfort in the belief that my vote to convict Mr. Johnson and sentence him to death was the right one. Now my tears are flowing too.”
Politics and Current
China revealing brands as “not made in America” in connection with the trade war

Calling what is occurring online “fire” doesn’t even start to elucidate what is occurring during the trade war between the United States and China. Gloves have dropped out since President Donald Trump threatened to use as much as 125% tariffs to all Chinese imports. Now producers in China are exposing American brands for what they call “hypocrisy” amongst the trade war.
When issuing American brands, a few of the largest producers in China claim that although American corporations claim that they’re “produced in the US”, they quietly produce goods in Chinese factories. According to movies published on Tiktok, a few of these alleged great names are Michael Kors, a handbag coach, Levi jeans and Lulhed.
According to 1 creator of the brand content, they run away from marking things as “made in America” or “Made in Welies”. For example, most bags are produced in China before it is distributed to a designer or brand. The designer will add ending or logo, enabling brands to characterize items as “produced” in response to the country.
“I am surprised that more people do not know this. The quality of Chinese products is equally good,” said the creator of Tiktok. “We have always had the assumption that Chinese goods are not good, but all this is propaganda.”
In one other film, published by China Yiw Factor, says that Birkenstocks is just USD 10 and asks people to contact him in the event that they need to cooperate with him.
Consumers corresponding to Chinese producers revealing American brands
One person published on China Yiwu Factor: “Chinese producers are driving luxury brands is my new favorite tiktok.”
Other people praise Chinese producers for “playing chess”, while Trump “plays him in fish” and encourages these producers to directly sell to consumers.
The escalating trade war between the United States and China appears after Trump said that there’s an imbalance of trade between two nations. He said that America has bought lots from China for years, but it surely was not reciprocated, reports. Trump said American Company goes beyond compliance with the rules of the communist party, But Chinese corporations haven’t got the same barriers.
His second argument concerns national security. America is predicated on China in terms of electronic chips, pharmaceutical components and rare lands. However, China has recently suspended the critical export of rare lands, and American corporations do not need an alternate supplier.
Tariffs are an try to make China negotiating friendly trade principles with the United States. If this doesn’t work, Trump’s administration hopes that it forces corporations to seek out other places, mainly in the United States, to amass and create their products.
While China is the major exporter to the USA, this is not any longer the first. The United States sent a record export of dollars to China to China in 2024. China, on the other hand, He exported $ 463 billion in goods and services to the United States, Third behind Mexico and Canada, Associated Pressreported.
The best export in the USA to China in 2024 included soy, planes, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. Last 12 months, the major export from China included cell phones, computers, toys and clothing.
(Tagstranslat) trade war
Politics and Current
Congresmen GOP shows the “depth of his loyalty” to Donald Trump with Bill, who would allow Trump only to block Obama, Bush and Clinton

The Republican Congressmen of Tennessee jumped on an early role in the race for the most Trump-Sykophantic member of the American Chamber of Representatives.
US representative Andy Ogles, who had previously introduced the provisions that would give President Donald Trump to the Appendix to the Greenland attachment, proposed Bill This will change the twenty second amendment, which establishes the current two -sided limit for presidents.

The Ogles act would allow each president to take the third term if their first two dates weren’t consistent. In the history of America, only two presidents met with this threshold: Donald Trump and Grover Cleveland, who lost their re -election offer with Benjamin Harrison in 1888, but won the rematch 4 years later.
“It is necessary to provide President Trump with every resource necessary to correct the catastrophic course specified by the Biden administration,” said Ogles in a press release. “He is devoted to the restoration of the Republic and saving our country, and we, as the legislator and as the state, must do everything in our power to support it.”
Ogles’s plan prohibits the third term, if the first two were subsequent – which implies former presidents of Bush, Obama and Clinton, they may not search for a return to the office. The bill would also deny the third full term of office for anyone who served over two years of someone’s term.
Here is 22. Amendment, in her present country:
“No person will be elected to the office of the president more than twice, and no person who was the president of the president or acted as a president, for over two years of a term of office, to which some other person was elected, he will be elected to the office of the president more than once.”
Ratified in 1951. The amendment took place after Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran to the election in 1932 and won the elected 3 times before, which makes him the only president who served greater than two terms. And yes, these were further conditions.
Now the metamover Ogles is proposed, which is just not ever happened:
“No person will be elected to the office of the president more than three times, nor will he be elected for any additional term after election for two subsequent conditions, and no person who held the office of the president or acted as the president, for over two years of the term to which another person will be elected to the office of president more than twice.”
Ogles amendment would require the approval of two -thirds of each Congress houses and three -quarters of countries which are to be ratified, which should explain why our structure has so few changes.
As Axios noted in his report, the act served as “the deep’s deep tag, which he enjoys the new president at the GOP house.”
Ogles is a member of the Chamber of Freedom Caucus, consisting of Trump’s most loyal loyalists. But there may be one more reason why Congresmen Tennessee is so difficult to be Trump’s biggest licking.
He is examined By House Ethics Committee regarding the discrepancy in its disclosure of campaign financing – particularly in relation to a private loan of USD 320,000, which was reported by the Federal Electoral Commission. Ogles, who pushed last yr Provisions regarding the sending of protesters of pro-Palestinian students He later modified the disclosure to Gaza as a “penalty” that reduced a private loan to USD 20,000. He refused to cooperate with the federal probe.
Review of the Congress Ethics Office stated that “there was an important reason to think that Rep. Ogles omitted or misled the required information” about his financial disclosure.
In addition, the assessment stated “an important reason to think that the Ogles REP. Campaign Committee could accept an excessive contribution that was reported as personal loans and candidate contributions.”
“I do not think that he wanted to talk about fraud regarding the financing of the campaign, which he is accused and would like us to focus on what Trump syndrome is,” said the democratic representative of Becca Balint with Vermont Axios. “Really pathetic. Tennessee voters deserve a lot better.
In a press release, a colleague from Tennessan Steve Cohen, a democrat, wrote: “2 terms are sufficient chaos for every nation to survive.”
Each of them is unlikely to cause serious damage to Ogles’s political profession. He easily won the re -election in 2024 despite ethical scandal and many other scandals, including false statements About his skilled and educational origin and about what happened $ 25,000 collected at Gofundme for a kid’s funeral garden, which never materialized.
Politics and Current
“Who are they?

During the CNN town hall with members of the Congress on Thursday, US representative Jahan Hayes, D-conn., Tried to persuade why Americans must be seriously concerned concerning the above-average role of Elon Musk, the richest person on this planet, plays within the federal government.
“You have the right to worry about Elon Musk, because he is an unrequited billionaire who has a huge impact,” said Hayes during a double -sided panel with a democratic representative of Derek Treem from California and republican representatives Mike Lawler from New York and Ryan Mackenzie from Pennsylvania.
Congressmenka Hayes, which was elected to the House of US representatives in 2018, called on the dearth of transparency of Trump’s administration in Musk’s work as the top of the dog. The department sanctioned by the White House, he managed the administration’s efforts to eliminate government waste and fraud, which caused the detention or annulled billions of dollars, and 1000’s of presidency employees dismissed or resolved. Many administration activities remain questioned within the Federal Court.
Hayes noticed that Trump’s administration stated in court that Musk was not chargeable for Doge, despite President Trump and other officials claiming that he was the top of the department, and conducts his decisions or recommendations. “They tried to hide the ball,” she said.
Congressmenka said that if Doge Muska really finds evidence of waste and government fraud, then he and his team should testify before Congress and present them. “Spread this, not through a series of tweets, and not through these unverified reports that it publishes,” said Hayes. She said that it was “very special” that “7,000 social insurance employees are exempt, 6,000 from the veterans’ administration is exempt (but) his company receives more contracts and earns more money from the federal government every day.”
Rep. Hayes identified that the satellite company Muska, Starlink, has now Server within the White House And he argued that the musk is “serious”. She continued: “Nobody even calls him for settlement … Everyone should worry about it. This is not normal. It is not regular that one person has this type of access to every agency, people data, security systems.”
Rep. Jahana Hayes raised concerns @Elon Musk Growing federal agreements and profits, questioning the dearth of responsibility and supervision – especially with Starlink, which is currently working within the White House.@Repjahanhayes @kaitlancolls pic.twitter.com/wnhuju9w5v
– Asmat Mallick (@asmatmallick) April 11, 2025
When rep. Lawler tried to defend Musk and Doge, arguing that their work is supported and supported by civilian officials, Hayes interrupted and asked sharply: “Who are they?” She repeated the query several times when Lawler spoke, apparently as a tactic to attract an argument, which Democrats repeatedly undergo the topic of transparency about what Musk, who is just not a government worker, performs with data that collects and protects privacy rights.
“I am not sure if the republican conference received a list of employees in Doge because we did not do it. So the information was not available to us,” Hayes said. “If there are employees, career, federal employees who work in the system to find this information, we would like to share it with us.”
Hayes, who was awarded the “Teacher of the Year” within the White House by President Barack Obama in 2016, before applying for Congress, also condemned the activities of the Trump administration to dismantle the US Education Department. Despite the repetitive claims of Trump officials and Republicans that the dismantling of the department would reflect “power” back to state and native rule, Congressmenka noted that “public education is already served by you.”
The “Department of Education protects civil rights of students,” she explained, mentioning the Doe services, including the enforcement of provisions on anti -discrimination to guard coloured students and disabled students, in addition to managing the federal student loan system and federal grant and subsidies.
“Children who will be most injured are children in poor and low income of the community,” she said. “So when people say … that something has been received, I do not know if they are asking for discrimination, the possibility of refusing to protect civil rights to poor students (or) without adequate financing and teachers to serve them.”
The Education Department protects civil rights of scholars, prepares teachers, serves student loans and our Pell subsidies – they don’t rule the curriculum or instructional materials within the state, which already belongs to the States. Acious so when people say it … pic.twitter.com/odh7wedvcp
– Jahana Hayes (@Repjahanhayes) April 11, 2025

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