Steve Marshall, If you believe Toforest Johnson is guilty, prove it in a new trial

This is an opinion column.

No one wants to see an innocent person executed. At least I don’t think so.

I’d venture not even the most ardent “law and order” zealot would look me in the eye and say it was cool to execute an innocent person simply because a jury found them guilty and they were sentenced to die.

Not even Steve Marshall, Alabama’s ardent “law and order” attorney general would do that. At least I don’t think so.

I haven’t yet looked Marshall in the eye and asked. Asked if he’d support executing someone with a chorus of support for a new trial. Support from prominent public and criminal justice officials. Support all but calling his prior trial a sham.

Someone like Toforest Johnson, a man who is probably innocent. Yet Marshall still argues to keep him on death row. Argues vociferously that he should not get a new trial.

Like frothing-at-the-mouth argues.

A lawsuit asking for a new trial did “not raise an issue of extraordinary public importance,” he responded.

Like guilt and innocence aren’t of public importance.

Like justice isn’t.

I’ve written before that I abhor the death penalty. Oh, the human side of me believes for some crimes the perpetrator cannot be taken from this Earth soon enough. My spirit, though, believes thou shalt not kill. Period.

And thou would be us.

I believe vengeance belongs to someone else, not me.

And certainly not us.

We’re just too shady. Too human. As well-intentioned as we may be, as diligent and good-hearted as prosecutors, juries, defenders, judges and witnesses may be, we’re human. They’re human. They make mistakes.

Gov. Kay Ivey doesn’t want to see an innocent person die. I know that now. I couldn’t say that a couple of weeks ago. She rubber-stamped and justified so many executions in our killer state that it’s easy to lose count. (Though we haven’t; it’s 21, soon likely to be 22.)

She justified them even when the victim’s relatives asked to spare the life of the person convicted of killing their loved one.

She’s as law-and-order as they come. But when presented with arguments and evidence that cast doubt on the 1994 conviction of Robin “Rocky” Myers, much of it deftly highlighted by my colleague Ivana Hrynkiw, she recently spared his life.

Myers was found guilty in the stabbing of Ludie Mae Tucker three years prior, even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime and no one stepped forward to say they saw him do it. Now 63, he was set to die soon by inhaling pure nitrogen gas at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, where he’s lived on death row since his conviction.

Lived there for a crime he long and consistently said he did not do.

Until Ivey was moved. Until Feb. 28 when she commuted his sentence to life. Not death.

Marshall? He lost his cookies.

“I am astonished by Governor Ivey’s decision to commute the death sentence of Rocky Myers and am bewildered that she chose not to directly communicate with me about this case or her decision.”

That was his statement. Part of it. Feel free to read the rest here.

Marshall doesn’t want innocent people to die, does he?

Myers was the first man in the state to have his death sentence commuted in what’s called “modern” history, which I’m not sure when that really began.

He shouldn’t be the last to have a chance to live. To prove their innocence.

Johnson deserves that chance, too

I’ve asked before, almost a year ago. He’s lived on death row since 1998; he was 25 then. He was convicted of murdering Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy William Hardy three years earlier in the parking lot of what was then the Crown Sterling Suites hotel in Birmingham, where Hardy worked a second job as a security guard.

He doesn’t deserve to be there. Be there despite a trial that would garner eye-rolls from a Law & Order jury.

But don’t just believe me, AG.

Listen to former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones and ex-Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, who once sat in Marshall’s now iceberg-cold seat. This week, they argued that Johnson deserves a new trial. Years ago, Baxley called the trial and conviction “deeply flawed.”

Okay, yeah, they’re Democrats. Ewww. We’re talking about someone’s life here.

Jones and Baxley jumped into a long line of respected public officials who also believe Johnson deserves a new trial.

Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr (he wasn’t DA when Johnson was tried) has long called for Johnson to be granted a new trial, saying five years ago after an extensive investigation into the case his “duty to seek justice requires intervention in this case.”

So has — and you know this, Marshall, because you’ve long turned a deaf ear to the pleas — so has the man who prosecuted Johnson: Jeff Wallace.

So has a former governor. Two former state Supreme Court Chief justices agree. A former U.S. attorney. Another DA and a former DA agree. So has a Kardashian, of course.

Even three former jurors agree their wrong should be righted. Last year, Monique Hicks’s tune shifted, she wrote in a guest column published on AL.com. “My role in the wrongful conviction of an innocent man keeps me awake at night,” she penned.

Myers may have been a historic first, but there’s no quota or cap on right.

Johnson deserves a new trial. You believe strongly in his guilt? Prove it. Persuade Jefferson County Jefferson County Circuit Judge Kandice Pickett to flush Johnson’s conviction and order a new trial.

Then stand in court and prove it, sir.

Let the system have a chance to right its wrong.

Let it have a chance to work.

Let’s be better tomorrow than we are today. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at rjohnson@al.com, and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, Instagram @roysj and BlueSky.