Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced Tuesday that she has commuted the death sentence of Toforest Johnson, 53, to life imprisonment without parole, citing concerns about the reliability of the evidence against him.
Mr. Johnson has long maintained his innocence in the 1995 shooting death of a Jefferson County deputy sheriff who was moonlighting as a security guard at a Birmingham hotel.
“In the 27 executions I have overseen, I have said we review each case with careful consideration, taking into account all the facts,” the governor said in a press release. “When presented with Mr. Johnson’s case, I had concerns there was not enough direct evidence to carry out the most serious punishment, death.”
Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr has argued in court since 2020 that Mr. Johnson should be granted a new trial.
In 2024, he wrote in a legal brief that an investigation by his office found that Mr. Johnson’s conviction was flawed and “cannot be justified or allowed to stand.”
“A thorough review and investigation of the entire case leaves no confidence in the integrity of Johnson’s conviction,” Mr. Carr wrote. “The interest of justice demands that Johnson be granted a new trial.”
The district attorney explained that the “evidence in this case has unraveled over 20 years.” Credible alibi witnesses place Mr. Johnson somewhere else at the time of the shooting, he wrote, and “physical evidence contradicts” the testimony of the State’s key witness, a woman who claimed she overheard Mr. Johnson—whom she did not know—confess to the murder while she was eavesdropping on a three-way phone call.
She was paid $5,000 for her testimony and had been a witness in multiple cases, Mr. Carr wrote, adding that the lead prosecutor at Mr. Johnson’s trial “now has such grave concerns about (her) account that he supports a new trial for Johnson.”
Former Chief Justices of the Alabama Supreme Court, Drayton Nabers and Sonny Hornsby, and former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley are among the lawyers, former judges, prosecutors, and celebrities who have written briefs or editorials calling for a new trial for Mr. Johnson.
Three jurors on the case have expressed support for a new trial, including Monique Hicks, who wrote in an op-ed, “My role in the wrongful conviction of an innocent man keeps me awake at night.”
“We are grateful to Governor Ivey for diligently reviewing Toforest’s case and taking action to spare an innocent man from execution,” Ty Alper, a lawyer for Mr. Johnson, said in a statement. “Now it is up to the courts to overturn his conviction and grant him a new trial. We will keep fighting until he is home with his family.”