Toforest Johnson, an Alabama death row inmate, will no longer face execution after the state’s Republican governor commuted his sentence amid growing doubts about his conviction.
Kay Ivey, the governor of Alabama, commuted Johnson’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1995 murder of William Hardy, a Jefferson County deputy sheriff. Johnson has long maintained that he is innocent, and several former officials, as well as the local prosecutor, have argued that he should receive a new trial.
“When Mr. Johnson’s case was presented to me, I was concerned that there was not enough direct evidence to pursue the most serious penalty: death,” Ivey said in a statement. “My decision is not a determination of innocence, but a recognition that the circumstances of this case warrant commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole. »
Ivey oversaw 27 executions during his term as governor and commuted the death sentences of three death row inmates. His decision Tuesday comes shortly after another Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, first canceled a planned execution earlier this month.
Ty Alper, one of Johnson’s attorneys, said he was grateful to Ivey for “diligently reviewing Toforest’s case and taking steps to spare an innocent man from execution.” Alper said the fight to overturn the conviction would continue. The governor only has the power to commute a death sentence in such cases.
“Toforest Johnson is innocent. It is now up to the courts to overturn his conviction and grant him a new trial. We will continue to fight until he returns home to his family,” Alper said.
Johnson was sentenced to death in 1998.
Hardy was shot twice in the head while working off-duty security at a hotel in 1995. Johnson claimed he was across town at the time of the shooting. No physical evidence linked him to the murder, and more than 10 witnesses placed him on the other side of town during the murder.
Danny Carr, the Jefferson County prosecutor, requested that the conviction be overturned, as did the original prosecutor. Carr said “the foundation of this conviction has disintegrated” and that there are multiple reasons to doubt the prosecution’s main witness.
The witness at Johnson’s 1998 trial testified that while listening to a phone call, she heard a man she believed to be Johnson admit to the crime. She received $5,000 in 2001 for her testimony, and Johnson’s lawyers say the state hid evidence of the financial motivation for her testimony.
There was a years-long legal effort to win a retrial in the case that received national attention, including support from Kim Kardashian, and was the subject of a podcast. Carr wrote in a 2024 court filing that “the evidence in this case has collapsed over 20 years.”
Former judges and prosecutors have joined efforts to get Johnson a new trial. Former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, former state Chief Justices Sonny Hornsby and Drayton Nabers, and several former judges and prosecutors have submitted briefs or written editorials in favor of a new trial.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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