The case has been in legal limbo for years as appeals played out in different courts. But in 2020, Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr—who wasn’t in office when Johnson was convicted—voiced his concerns about Johnson’s case and asked for a new trial. That motion for a new trial was pending in Jefferson County while the Supreme Court looked at a previous appeal, but the nation’s highest court declined to review the case in 2023.
Since that denial, the case has been ongoing in Jefferson County.
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Despite Carr questioning the conviction, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office has said Johnson belongs on death row.
In a January court filing, the AG’s Office argued Johnson shouldn’t be allowed to litigate the same claims again. The court records “speak for themselves,” the office said.
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Marshall’s office called the review “unsanctioned” because it happened before Jefferson County formally opened a Conviction Review Unit in 2021.
But Johnson’s lawyers pointed out in their Monday filing that the original prosecutor in the case—former Jefferson County Deputy District Attorney Jeff Wallace—has also spoken out in support of a new trial.
The AG’s Office has also claimed Johnson’s case should be dismissed based on procedural issues. Johnson’s lawyers wrote Monday, “To be clear, the Attorney General’s procedural argument is that this Court should allow Johnson to be executed even if the foundation of the prosecution’s case has disintegrated over time, even if the totality of the evidence shows that the conviction is fundamentally unreliable, and even if Johnson would not be convicted if he were tried today. That argument is both wrong and remarkable.”
The lawyers call Marshall’s arguments a “chilling suggestion that the Court should allow Johnson’s execution to proceed ‘whether or not’ the underlying conclusions about his guilt are correct.”