Toforest Johnson
Toforest Onesha Johnson is an American man on death row for the 1995 murder of Jefferson County deputy sheriff William G. Hardy in Alabama. Johnson's case is controversial and his quest for a new trial has attracted widespread support, from prominent lawyers such as the original prosecutor in his case and Alabama's former attorney general to celebrities such as Kim Kardashian.
Johnson was convicted based on the testimony of a single witness, Violet Ellison, who allegedly overheard Johnson confessing to the murder during a jailhouse phone call she eavesdropped on. It was later revealed that Ellison was paid $5,000 for her testimony, unbeknownst to Johnson's lawyers. Johnson's lawyers have also presented alibi evidence showing that Johnson and a friend, Ardragus Ford, were together at a nightclub miles away when the murder happened. Many, including current Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr and Johnson's original trial prosecutor Jeff Wallace, former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Drayton Nabers Jr., former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, and many Alabama legal, civil rights, and faith organizations, have publicly called for Johnson's conviction to be overturned.
Johnson's story is the subject of a critically acclaimed eight-episode investigative podcast, , by Alabama-based journalist Beth Shelburne.
Currently, Johnson remains on death row at the Holman Correctional Facility and his execution date has yet to be scheduled.
Personal life
Toforest Onesha Johnson was born in Birmingham, Alabama on February 8, 1973. Johnson mostly grew up in Birmingham's Pratt City neighborhood but moved to Birmingham's Ensley community when he was 16. Johnson has one younger brother and five children.Johnson's children have been on the forefront of advocacy for their father to get a new trial. His daughter Akeriya Terry made a series of videos on Instagram sharing her experience growing up and living with her father being sentenced to death. Some of her videos caught the attention of high-profile celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, who shared one of Ms. Terry's videos on her Instagram stories. Johnson's oldest daughter, Shanaye Poole, has also spoken out about her family's advocacy on behalf of her father. In a 2019 article, Poole is quoted as saying about her father: "He’d rather think of the positive outcomes than the negative. That could eat away at a person, but I think he’s just maintained his faith and he knows that he is an innocent man."
Murder of William G. Hardy
On July 19, 1995, between 12:30 a.m. and 1:00 a.m., a 49-year-old off-duty deputy sheriff, William G. Hardy, was murdered outside a hotel in Birmingham, Alabama.That night, Barry Rushakoff, the night manager of the hotel, heard two pop-like sounds echoing outside the hotel. He attempted to contact Hardy over the radio to ask Hardy to check the source of the sounds. However, Hardy did not respond. Later, Rushakoff received calls from several hotel guests who reported hearing gunshots in the parking lot. He called 911 to report the shots and request backup for Hardy. Rushakoff again attempted to reach Hardy via radio, but without success. Several guests of the hotel, including Larry Osborne and Annie Colvin, testified that they were awakened by gunshot sounds that night.
Rushakoff proceeded to the back of the hotel. On his way, he passed a table in the atrium where Hardy frequently sat, noticing the deputy's radio, a cup of coffee, and a cigarette still smoldering in an ashtray. When Rushakoff reached the glass doors at the rear of the hotel, he discovered Hardy's body in the parking lot. He returned to the front desk and called 911 again to report the deputy had been injured. While on the phone with 911, a hotel guest, Leon Colvin, approached the desk to ask about car keys that his stepson, Michael Ansley, was supposed to have left for him earlier. Rushakoff gave Colvin the keys, then completed the 911 call and waited for the police. Rushakoff stated that, while waiting, he did not see anyone else in the parking lot except for Hardy, who was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. At the time of his death, Hardy was a deputy sheriff in Jefferson County.
Dr. Robert Brissie, chief medical examiner for Jefferson County, conducted the autopsy. Dr. Brissie certified that the cause of Hardy's death was two gunshots. He added that the gunshot wound to Hardy's forehead and the exit hole in both Hardy's hat and back of his head suggested that one of the two bullets was delivered about 12 to 20 inches away from Hardy's forehead and at approximately a 15-degree upward angle. Ballistics evidence confirmed the two shots were fired from the same gun, establishing that there was only one shooter.
At around 4 a.m. on that same day, police stopped a car at a motel several miles from the crime scene. In the car were four African-American people, one of whom was 22-year-old Toforest Johnson and another was his 21-year-old paraplegic friend Ardragus Ford, while the other two were Latanya Henderson and Yolanda Chambers. Johnson was arrested at the scene due to an outstanding traffic warrant and the other three people were allowed to go home.
Johnson and three other men were later arrested for Hardy's murder. One was Ford; the other two were 22-year-old Omar Rahman Berry and 20-year-old Quintez Wilson. The four men were all charged with capital murder, an offense that carries either life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty under Alabama state law. The four were later indicted by a grand jury in March 1996. At the grand jury, the District Attorney presented the sworn testimony of the lead detective in the case, who told the grand jurors that police investigation had revealed that Berry and Ford shot Hardy.
Murder trials
Two years later, Toforest Johnson and Ardragus Ford faced separate trials for Hardy's murder, while prosecutors dropped all charges against both Omar Berry and Quintez Wilson. More than a decade after his release, Wilson died in 2008 from a shooting incident that left two men dead.Johnson and Ford were each tried twice. Prosecutors argued different theories at each of the four trials. These theories were all different from the theory of the murder that the District Attorney presented at the grand jury in January 1996.
The prosecution tried Ardragus Ford first. Prior to Ford's trial, the District Attorney, David Barber, told Ford's lawyer that he did not think Ford was the killer and agreed to give Ford complete immunity if Ford would implicate Toforest Johnson. Ford told his attorney that if it were true that Toforest Johnson committed the crime, he would say so "in a heartbeat," but refused to lie and so the trial went forward, with Ford facing the death penalty. At Ford's trial, prosecutors relied on the testimony of Yolanda Chambers, who testified that she saw Ford kill Deputy Hardy. Prosecutors told the jury that Chambers had lied in the past, but was telling the truth now. However, prosecutors would go on to argue "a completely different theory" of the crime in Johnson's subsequent trial. In the meantime, Ford's trial ended with a hung jury with a 10–2 vote in favor of acquittal in November 1997.
One month after Ford's first trial, Johnson's first trial began. However, prosecutors no longer argued that Ford shot Deputy Hardy and instead argued that Johnson was the one who fired the fatal shots. Prosecutors now relied on information from a woman named Violet Ellison who testified that her daughter was dating an inmate at the county jail and her daughter would make three-way calls for her boyfriend. Ellison said she picked up the phone on one of these occasions and heard someone identify themselves as "Toforest" and say that he shot Hardy and also said that Quintez Wilson fired the other shot. Notably, this did not match evidence at the crime scene, which showed the bullets were fired from the same gun. This also did not match the prosecution's theory in either Ford's or Johnson's trial that the shooter acted alone. Johnson's first trial, like Ford's, ended in a mistrial because the jury did not unanimously find the defendant guilty.
The next year, the prosecution tried both Ford and Johnson once again. At Johnson's retrial, prosecutors again relied on Violet Ellison as their only evidence that Johnson was connected to the murder. No physical or forensic evidence tied Johnson to the murder. In defense, Johnson's lawyers called two alibi witnesses who put Johnson at Tee's Place, a nightclub on the other side of town, at the time of the crime. Johnson's attorneys also called Yolanda Chambers to testify that Johnson was at the crime scene but did not commit the murder. The prosecution argued to the jury that Chambers was a liar and unreliable witness. Chambers' testimony conflicted with the alibi witnesses Johnson's lawyers called. The jury convicted Johnson of capital murder on August 23, 1998, and later, by a vote of 10–2, the jury recommended the death penalty. Johnson was sentenced to death on October 30, 1998.
In Ford's retrial, the prosecution changed their prosecution theory again and relied on Yolanda Chambers, who they had previously called "a liar" during Johnson's second trial. Prosecutors eventually stipulated that Chambers lied to law enforcement about the crime "at least 300 times." The jury voted to acquit Ardragus Ford on June 13, 1999.
Appeal process
On June 29, 2001, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Toforest Johnson's murder conviction and death sentence on direct appeal.Johnson's first state post-conviction petition was litigated over the course of many years, with the state appellate court sending the case back to the trial court for hearings on three different occasions. Specifically, on September 28, 2007, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the lower court's summary dismissal of Johnson's post-conviction petition and sent the case back to the lower court for a hearing. On June 14, 2013, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals again reversed the lower court and sent the case back to the trial court for further hearings. On August 14, 2015, the trial court's denial of Johnson's post-conviction petition was affirmed by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.
On June 26, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, found in favor of Johnson, and sent the case back to the state courts for re-hearing after the state courts had refused to consider Johnson's claim that prosecutors had failed to disclose that the State's primary witness at trial, Violet Ellison, had been secretly paid $5000 for her testimony. On May 6, 2022, after judge Teresa Pulliam denied his prosecutorial misconduct claim, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the ruling on appeal. On December 16, 2022, the Alabama Supreme Court denied Johnson's petition for review and declined to hear the case.
Johnson petitioned for review to the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2023. On October 2, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Johnson's petition.
On November 14, 2024, Johnson filed a new petition to the Jefferson County Circuit Court for a fresh review of his case. The petition is currently pending in front of Circuit Judge .