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.”