Thread by @DrRJKavanagh

Speaking of people convicted solely on the basis of someone's word. Toforest Johnson was convicted of murder & has been on death row in Alabama for 20 years because a DA paid a witness $5,000 after she said she heard him confess on a phone call. That's it. theappeal.org/alabama-man-de…

That's the evidence against him.

The witness had never heard his voice, never met him, she didn't even know him.

And all of this was withheld from defense attorneys, a clear violation of the Brady rule, which requires the prosecution to turn over exculpatory evidence.

Based on the same evidence, Mr. Johnson's co-defendant, Ardragus Ford, was acquitted at a separate trial.

At Mr. Ford's trial, prosecutors argued Mr. Ford had shot and killed the victim, William Hardy.

At Mr. Johnson's trial, they argued Mr. Johnson had. al.com/opinion/2019/0…

For 20 years no one has done anything about this. There are countless other people sitting on death row or in prison in similar circumstances where the miscarriage of justice is so obvious.

There are other cases that come through criminal court on a daily basis where people take pleas to misdemeanors on no evidence because they know the system functions exactly like this in in the most serious of cases. Those cases never generate any media.

The devastating reach of this system, which requires so little evidence that a Black man can sit 20 years on death row, and so many other people have rap sheets pages thick because they took pleas rather than go to jail and risk dire consequences, is so staggering.

It can feel overwhelming to begin to fight it. In the case of Mr. Johnson there is some hope of justice way too late. @VoteDannyCarr, Birmingham's new DA, ran on a reform platform. He could move to vacate Mr. Johnson's conviction. This needs to happen now.