Speaker 1: Last time on ear witness Bally that.
Speaker 2: Was walking that door, scanting up on this table and
Speaker 2: say what she said.
Speaker 3: We got a full table.
Speaker 4: Now we got all the ever this we.
Speaker 3: Need this, Alison, would you tell us about the information
Speaker 3: that you have for us?
Speaker 5: Yes, my daughter to use her three way to call for.
Speaker 2: His homeboy, and he named his the old name is
Speaker 2: to Barge Johnson. We had a weak case. It's based
Speaker 2: on testimony in one witness.
Speaker 4: The only evidence supposedly they had against was this ear
Speaker 4: witness who had never heard him speak before, who had
Speaker 4: no idea who he was.
Speaker 6: This case is all about alternative worlds that are in
Speaker 6: conflict with each other and in conflict with truth, and
Speaker 6: in conflict with what our justice system stands for.
Speaker 4: We forget sometime that there was a third person on
Speaker 4: that phone who told him to discredit to what this
Speaker 4: lady says. She heard, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 4: now how close, how much closer can you get than that?
Speaker 1: Why did the jury believe this woman who eavesdrop on
Speaker 1: the call over you who actually had on the call.
Speaker 4: I don't understand. I never understood that. You know, the
Speaker 4: victim's family deserve to know what happened. To their loved one.
Speaker 4: But they get no justice, no peace out of a
Speaker 4: wrongful conviction, you know, And this is simply a case
Speaker 4: of does anybody all do.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time you met him?
Speaker 7: At you?
Speaker 1: Ty Alper was just starting out his legal career at
Speaker 1: the Southern Center for Human Rights when he met to
Speaker 1: Forest Johnson. To Forest was one of the first people
Speaker 1: on death row that Ty'd been assigned to represent. In
Speaker 1: January of two thousand and three, ty gets into one
Speaker 1: of the old volvos that the Southern Center had in
Speaker 1: their parking lot in Atlanta and drives four hours south
Speaker 1: to Holman Prison and at Moore, Alabama.
Speaker 3: The first time I met him was down at Holman.
Speaker 3: I was by myself and well, I was going to
Speaker 3: go down and make sure that he was okay with
Speaker 3: us representing him and to sort of tell him where
Speaker 3: his case was.
Speaker 1: Tye is twenty nine years old, and here's what he knows.
Speaker 1: To Forest Johnson is just eight months old than he is,
Speaker 1: and he's been on death row for over four years
Speaker 1: for a crime he says he did not commit. When
Speaker 1: ty finally gets inside the prison, he's taken to a
Speaker 1: room called the visiting Yard, but it isn't a yard
Speaker 1: at all. It looks like a middle school cafeteria surrounded
Speaker 1: by plexiglass. Outside the plexiglass, correctional officers and men in
Speaker 1: prison uniforms, white slacks, white shirt with Alabama Department of
Speaker 1: Corrections stamped on the back are walking by. Inside, there's
Speaker 1: no ac and the sad attempt of cooling the room
Speaker 1: is left to metal fans that hang in the corners
Speaker 1: to Forrest sits at a table in a plastic chair
Speaker 1: across from Ty. Ty tries to talk quietly so he
Speaker 1: doesn't disturb other lawyers working with their clients on the yard,
Speaker 1: but loud enough to be heard over the roar of
Speaker 1: the fans.
Speaker 3: And I remember saying to him, you know, mister Johnson,
Speaker 3: I want you to know we're at the very early
Speaker 3: stages of your appeals. There's many rounds of appeals to go.
Speaker 3: We're going to file a petition in the US Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: Then we're going to go back into state court. If
Speaker 3: we lose there, we're going to go back into federal court.
Speaker 3: And all this could take many years. And he just
Speaker 3: started crying, and I assumed that he was upset because
Speaker 3: I knew that he had claimed that he was claiming
Speaker 3: he was innocent, and I assumed that he was upset
Speaker 3: that this was going to take so long, and I
Speaker 3: asked him what was wrong, and he said that he
Speaker 3: was so happy because he had just assumed that they
Speaker 3: could come any minute and take him to be executed.
Speaker 3: And it was just the thing that struck me the most,
Speaker 3: because not only had he been screwed over in pretty
Speaker 3: much every possible way you can be, but nobody was
Speaker 3: telling anything about what was going on in this case.
Speaker 1: But to Forrest's days without a lawyer to fight for
Speaker 1: him are over. It's now up to Tie and the
Speaker 1: team of lawyers at the Southern Center to do what
Speaker 1: no one has done before, thoroughly investigate to Forrest's conviction,
Speaker 1: a conviction that hinged on the word and credibility of
Speaker 1: a single witness. Violet Ellison. I'm Beth Shelburne. This is
Speaker 1: ear witness, Chapter six Misfiled. After Ty leaves Holman prison,
Speaker 1: he and the rest of Taforest's new legal team go
Speaker 1: through the case. They need to understand how their new
Speaker 1: client ended up on death row. They hear about DeForest's
Speaker 1: alibi that he was at Tea's place when Deputy Hardy
Speaker 1: was shot. They learn about Yolanda Chambers changing stories. They
Speaker 1: read how the state presented conflicting theories at different trials.
Speaker 1: Now it's clear to the legal team to Forest Johnson
Speaker 1: did not kill Deputy Hardy. The state's case completely revolved
Speaker 1: around Violet Ellison's testimony.
Speaker 3: So we knew that that was a potentially fruitful area
Speaker 3: to investigate because she was the state's whole case.
Speaker 1: They need to figure out whether they can challenge Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison's testimony. If they can show that it wasn't reliable,
Speaker 1: they can argue that to Forrest deserves a new trial.
Speaker 1: So they need to know why did Violet Ellison come
Speaker 1: forward in the first place. Prosecutor Jeff Wallace told two
Speaker 1: juries that Violet was a credible witness, someone who overheard
Speaker 1: to Forrest Johnson admit to the crime, and she came
Speaker 1: forward because it was the right thing to do. But
Speaker 1: there were other reasons Violet Ellison might have come forward.
Speaker 3: We knew the reward was offered because it was all
Speaker 3: over the papers, but we didn't know who got it
Speaker 3: or if Violet Elison got it.
Speaker 1: The reward was not a secret. It was mentioned in
Speaker 1: press releases and reported on TV news.
Speaker 3: So the next step was okay. Well, were there questions
Speaker 3: about her credibility that the jury never heard, and an
Speaker 3: obvious one was what was she paid for her testimony?
Speaker 1: If Violet Ellison knew about the reward money before trial,
Speaker 1: or even if she had qualified for the reward, the
Speaker 1: jury should have been told this when they heard her testimony.
Speaker 1: The legal issues here get complicated fast, but it's important
Speaker 1: to understand that the prosecution must turn over anything that
Speaker 1: would be helpful to the defense. It can be a
Speaker 1: lead on another suspect, or some forensic report that casts
Speaker 1: doubt on a piece of evidence, or information that calls
Speaker 1: the credibility of a state's witness into question. This is
Speaker 1: called Brady information, after a famous US Supreme Court case
Speaker 1: called Brady v. Maryland.
Speaker 7: And if a.
Speaker 1: Court finds out later that prosecutors failed to turn over
Speaker 1: Brady information, that's a constitutional violation and the court will
Speaker 1: order a new trial. So if prosecutors knew that Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison came forward looking for the reward, they should have
Speaker 1: told to Forrest trial lawyers about it, and then they
Speaker 1: could have brought it up at trial. They could have
Speaker 1: told the jury when you go back and deliberate about
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison's testimony. Remember, there's a reward being offered and
Speaker 1: she wants that reward. Are you sure money isn't part
Speaker 1: of the equation here? But the jury never heard anything
Speaker 1: about the reward.
Speaker 2: She was very credible.
Speaker 1: Monique Hicks was on the jury into Forrest's second trial
Speaker 1: and she voted to convict to Forrest on Violet Ellison's testimony.
Speaker 2: She just seemed very truthful, like she had nothing to
Speaker 2: gain by coming forward. She had heard this information and
Speaker 2: she felt like I have to share this. She was
Speaker 2: a very credible witness compared to some of the others
Speaker 2: that took the sand like we believed her. Obviously we
Speaker 2: believed her because we convicted him and it was on
Speaker 2: her testimony.
Speaker 1: Overturning a conviction is damn near impossible. Our system prioritizes
Speaker 1: finality in part because a jury's verdict is considered a
Speaker 1: community statement and given great weight. So for to Forrest
Speaker 1: to get a new trial, his lawyers needed to prove
Speaker 1: two things that Violet Ellison came forward with her story
Speaker 1: in the hopes of getting the reward, and that police
Speaker 1: and prosecutors were aware of this true motivation. There's one
Speaker 1: big problem. If Violet Ellison had been paid, documentation of
Speaker 1: the payment should have been into Forrest's case file, but
Speaker 1: there wasn't anything there. Still, Tye and the other attorneys
Speaker 1: had a hunch that Violet Ellison got the money. The
Speaker 1: legal team tried calling everywhere they could, the Sheriff's office,
Speaker 1: the Governor's office, the Record's division. What should have been
Speaker 1: just a simple phone call turned into a multi week endeavor. Finally,
Speaker 1: someone at the Governor's office said they might have something
Speaker 1: and would send over a fax.
Speaker 3: I do remember us all hovering around the fact machine
Speaker 3: waiting to see what it was, because it was the
Speaker 3: first time that anyone had acknowledged that there might be
Speaker 3: something that was helpful.
Speaker 1: The fax machine spits out a piece of paper signed
Speaker 1: by Judge Alfred Bayhackle, the man who presided over to
Speaker 1: Forrest's trials and sentenced him to death. The paper authorized
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison to receive five thousand dollars in reward money
Speaker 1: in exchange for her testimony that led to the conviction
Speaker 1: of to Forest Johnson.
Speaker 3: That was when we knew, okay, she did know about
Speaker 3: this reward. She was motivated by the reward when she testified,
Speaker 3: and the judge knew about it in an order that
Speaker 3: was not included in the court file.
Speaker 1: For to Forest's legal team, this was a huge first step.
Speaker 1: The language in the court order said that Violet Ellison
Speaker 1: came forward pursuant to the public offer of a reward.
Speaker 1: And again, this authorization document was signed by the judge.
Speaker 1: It's an official court document. It should have been into
Speaker 1: Forest's court file right there where everyone could see it,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't. Instead, to Forest's legal team had to
Speaker 1: go on a bureaquecratic goose chase to find it. Was
Speaker 1: someone trying to hide something what other documents were missing
Speaker 1: from the public file. So a young investigator working with
Speaker 1: Taforest's legal team named Jason Marx went right to the source.
Speaker 1: He walked up to Violet Ellison's house, holding Judge Bahackele's
Speaker 1: court order that authorized her payment in one hand and
Speaker 1: knocked on her front door with the other.
Speaker 8: When I showed up at her house, he said something
Speaker 8: about the phone calls, and I said, Oh, I'm not
Speaker 8: here to talk to you about the phone calls. I'm
Speaker 8: here to talk about the reward that you got. And
Speaker 8: that's when she said I didn't get a reward, I
Speaker 8: was like, oh, well that's funny. I was like, I
Speaker 8: have some paperwork here that says you got a reward,
Speaker 8: and so basically yeah. So basically confronted her with the document,
Speaker 8: she said, Oh, yeah, I did get a reward, got
Speaker 8: five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: After initially denying it, Violet Ellison told Jason the state
Speaker 1: paid her five thousand dollars for testifying against to Forrest Johnson.
Speaker 3: We knew when we got the judge's order that he
Speaker 3: had authorized the payment, and then she told us that
Speaker 3: she got paid, so we knew it all. When you
Speaker 3: take a step back, he's on death row because the
Speaker 3: jury believed a woman who they didn't know was being
Speaker 3: paid for her testimony, and that should cause real concerns
Speaker 3: and questions about the validity of the conviction.
Speaker 1: To Forest's legal team files a Brady claim against the
Speaker 1: state that argues the jury into Forest's trial should have
Speaker 1: heard about the reward, Violet Ellison knew about the reward
Speaker 1: when she came forward, and that the state suppressed the
Speaker 1: information on purpose. The state denies everything. They deny any
Speaker 1: Brady violation, and they deny all of the allegations into
Speaker 1: Forest's including that Violet Ellison was motivated by the reward
Speaker 1: and that she was paid five thousand dollars. But to
Speaker 1: Forest's legal team has evidence to the contrary, the court
Speaker 1: order that was faxed to them and Violet Ellison herself.
Speaker 1: After the state submits a written denial of all of
Speaker 1: the charges brought by to Forest's legal team, the case
Speaker 1: heads to court, but Alabama courts won't hear the case.
Speaker 1: They say the reward doesn't qualify as Brady, so the
Speaker 1: appeal takes years to make its way through the courts.
Speaker 1: When to Forest and Ty first met, to Forrest's five
Speaker 1: kids were all under the age of ten, and as
Speaker 1: the Brady claim crawls through the legal system, seventeen years
Speaker 1: go by, Trus's oldest daughter has graduated college and his
Speaker 1: four other kids are having kids of their own. Finally,
Speaker 1: to Forest's legal team gets the case in front of
Speaker 1: the United States Supreme Court. The justices tell the Alabama
Speaker 1: courts that they're wrong for not reviewing to forest Brady claim.
Speaker 1: The State of Alabama must hear the evidence about the reward.
Speaker 1: Ahead of the hearing, Judge Teresa Pulliam gives the state
Speaker 1: very clear orders.
Speaker 3: You have to turn over everything, everything that you have
Speaker 3: that concerns a reward payment, you have to turn it
Speaker 3: over to mister Johnson's lawyers.
Speaker 1: So the state gives to Forest's legal team what they
Speaker 1: say are all of the documents about to Forest's case.
Speaker 1: An attorney representing the state tells Judge Pulliam the files
Speaker 1: contained nothing about anyone applying for a reward or being
Speaker 1: granted a reward.
Speaker 3: I think it was eight or nine banker's boxes of documents,
Speaker 3: and we went through every single page looking for any
Speaker 3: mention of a reward payment about Elson, and there was
Speaker 3: nothing in there.
Speaker 1: But then the Forest's legal team gets a tip from
Speaker 1: an insider. The woman who served as office manager at
Speaker 1: the Jefferson County District Attorney's office went to Forest was
Speaker 1: on trial.
Speaker 3: So she told us that if we were only looking
Speaker 3: in the case file, we weren't looking everywhere that the
Speaker 3: documentation might be because they also had a reward file
Speaker 3: that they kept separate from the case files that would
Speaker 3: include paperwork and documentation of witnesses who had sought rewards
Speaker 3: and or been paid rewards.
Speaker 1: Reward information in the DA's office, according to this source,
Speaker 1: was kept in a separate confidential file away from prosecutors
Speaker 1: involved in trials like Jeff Wallace. This meant he couldn't
Speaker 1: turn it over to to Forest lawyers because he didn't
Speaker 1: know about it. To to Forest's attorneys, this meant the
Speaker 1: information about the reward was kept from them intentionally suppressed.
Speaker 1: The judge orders the DA's office to turn over this
Speaker 1: separate confidential file.
Speaker 3: We got an email that said, we found these documents.
Speaker 3: They had been misfiled, and here they are.
Speaker 1: Here they are. After seventeen years, the state finally turned
Speaker 1: over every document to Forest lawyers had asked for the
Speaker 1: hidden treasure trove, an application for the reward that signed
Speaker 1: by Violet Ellison, a copy of the actual check for
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars made out to Violet Ellison, an email
Speaker 1: exchange between District Attorney David Barber and the Governor's office
Speaker 1: about how to pay the reward, and a letter from
Speaker 1: DA Barber asking the governor to pay Violet Ellison the money,
Speaker 1: saying that she came forward pursuant to the offer of
Speaker 1: a reward. If this hidden information about the reward kept
Speaker 1: away from to Forest lawyers for seventeen years doesn't count
Speaker 1: as prosecutorial misconduct as a Brady violation. What does But
Speaker 1: according to the state, all of these documents were simply misfiled.
Speaker 1: When I hear misfiled, I imagine someone accidentally putting a
Speaker 1: document into the wrong folder, or maybe a paper falling
Speaker 1: behind a cabinet. But that's not what happened. It sounds
Speaker 1: like they had it organized in a file they kept
Speaker 1: explicitly for rewards, a file that no one seemed to
Speaker 1: know about except the office manager and the DA himself,
Speaker 1: David Barber, who headed the prosecutor's office. How is this acceptable?
Speaker 2: Hello?
Speaker 1: Yes, I was calling for David Barber. Mister Barber. My
Speaker 1: name is Beth Shelburne. I called David Barber, who's now
Speaker 1: retired after serving as Jefferson County's top prosecutor for twenty
Speaker 1: four years. He was DA whent to Forest was tried
Speaker 1: for capital murder and personally involved in the reward issue.
Speaker 1: He wrote the letter asking the governor to pay Violet Ellison.
Speaker 1: The defense team for mister Johnson didn't have any records
Speaker 1: about the reward until twenty nineteen. The Attorney General's office
Speaker 1: produced the records and said they had been misfiled. Okay,
Speaker 1: does that sound strange to you or do you have
Speaker 1: any idea how that could.
Speaker 2: Have happened.
Speaker 9: The AG's office If they said he got misfiled, and
Speaker 9: I guess he got misfiled the human error, I guess.
Speaker 9: I don't know. I don't second guess people. I mean
Speaker 9: things happened. You have people working in agency's DA's offices.
Speaker 9: AG's office is Governor's office. Things getting misfiled, and I
Speaker 9: mean it, it happens.
Speaker 1: It happens. Actually, it did happen at least one other
Speaker 1: time on Barber's watch. In two thousand and four, a
Speaker 1: man named Montez Spradley was sentenced to death for murder
Speaker 1: based on the testimony of one witness, just like to
Speaker 1: Forest Johnson. Eventually, Spradley's lawyers discovered the star witness was
Speaker 1: paid ten thousand dollars for her testimony, but police and
Speaker 1: prosecutors never disclosed the reward payment because the reward documents
Speaker 1: were kept in this same separate file as Violet Ellison's
Speaker 1: reward payment. The judge in that case also didn't disclose
Speaker 1: information about the reward. The judge was Gloria Bayhackle, the
Speaker 1: sister of Alfred Bayhackle, the judge into Forrest's trial.
Speaker 5: Hello.
Speaker 1: Hey, my name is Beth Sholburn. I was wondering if
Speaker 1: mister Alfred Bayhackle is here. My producer, Mara, and I
Speaker 1: went to Judge Alfred bay Hackle's house, hoping to talk
Speaker 1: to him about these off the record payment authorizations, but
Speaker 1: he told us that he wasn't interested in commenting on
Speaker 1: any specific cases or his time as a judge. Talk
Speaker 1: to you. It's about a murder case and several of
Speaker 1: the trials.
Speaker 3: I can't talk about, okay.
Speaker 1: Montes Bradley was able to prove his innocence and was
Speaker 1: released from prison in twenty fifteen, to Forrest and his
Speaker 1: attorneys hope for this same outcome. I first heard about
Speaker 1: to Force Johnson's case in twenty nineteen, when the Brady
Speaker 1: hearing was scheduled. I was assigned to cover the hearing
Speaker 1: for WBrC, the news station where I used to work.
Speaker 1: This hearing would determine whether Violet Ellison's secret reward payment
Speaker 1: amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. I didn't know much about to
Speaker 1: Force case back then, only that he was on death
Speaker 1: row for a crime that he said he didn't commit
Speaker 1: and was convicted on the testimony of an ear witness
Speaker 1: who was paid off the record. In preparation for the hearing,
Speaker 1: I met with t Forest's cousin Antonio Green, and other
Speaker 1: family members at their uncle's house. They all said to
Speaker 1: Forrest was optimistic about the hearing, and.
Speaker 4: He tells me, he says all the time, well, you know,
Speaker 4: cause I know I didn't do this, so one day
Speaker 4: it'll all come out.
Speaker 2: Old.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: On the day of the hearing, I only took a
Speaker 1: pen and notebook into Judge Pulliam's courtroom because she doesn't
Speaker 1: allow recording. I sat next to to Forest's mother, Donna,
Speaker 1: in a middle row, and I spotted to Forrest sitting
Speaker 1: at the defence table with his attorneys. This was the
Speaker 1: first and only time I've ever seen to Forrest Johnson
Speaker 1: in person. He was wearing an orange and white striped
Speaker 1: jail jumpsuit and was in handcuffs and leg irons. At
Speaker 1: one point, he turned and smiled at his family, and
Speaker 1: I heard his mom next to me say softly, hey baby.
Speaker 1: The courtroom was packed and much of the crowd was
Speaker 1: to Forrest's family and friends, but I also saw Jefferson
Speaker 1: County's newly elected district attorney seated in the first row
Speaker 1: Danny Carr. He's the first black man to be elected
Speaker 1: top prosecutor in Jefferson County. A month before this hearing,
Speaker 1: a group of faith leaders who knew about to Forest
Speaker 1: case published an open letter to Carr asking him to
Speaker 1: push for a new trial, but at this point Carr
Speaker 1: had not commented publicly on the case. The hearing starts
Speaker 1: at nine am to Forrest's attorneys present all of the
Speaker 1: documents that took the state seventeen years to turn over.
Speaker 1: They argue that the documents show the state suppressed evidence
Speaker 1: that Violet Ellison initially contacted police in pursuit of the
Speaker 1: reward money, and then the state hid that she was
Speaker 1: eventually paid five thousand dollars. Just after ten am, the
Speaker 1: state calls only one witness to testify, Violet Ellison. She's
Speaker 1: seventy seven years old and walks to the stand using
Speaker 1: a cane. She has short white hair and is dressed
Speaker 1: in a white blazer and black pants. After she's sworn in,
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison says that she knew the victim and followed
Speaker 1: the details about the murder and investigation by watching the
Speaker 1: news and reading the newspaper. But despite all that, and
Speaker 1: despite the fact that information about the reward was all
Speaker 1: over the news, she is vehement that she didn't know
Speaker 1: about the reward. She testifies that the first time she
Speaker 1: heard about the reward was after to Forrest was sentenced
Speaker 1: to death in July of two thousand and one, three
Speaker 1: years after he was convicted. She says that's when someone
Speaker 1: from the DA's office contacted her and asked her to
Speaker 1: come in and sign papers for the reward money. At
Speaker 1: the end of this five hour hearing, Judge Pulliam says
Speaker 1: she's not going to make a decision that day. She'll
Speaker 1: consider all of the evidence and then issue her ruling
Speaker 1: to Forrest's mother, Donna, sitting next to me, bursts into tears.
Speaker 1: After the hearing, I was going over my notes and
Speaker 1: noticed a big discrepancy between the state's story and Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison's testimony about what triggered the reward three years after
Speaker 1: to Forrest was convicted. In opening statements, the state lawyer
Speaker 1: said that Violet Ellison asked the DA's office about the reward,
Speaker 1: but on the stand, Violet said it was the other
Speaker 1: way around that they contacted her. This might seem like
Speaker 1: a minor detail, but knowing what triggered the reward payment
Speaker 1: is key in determining whether or not this is a
Speaker 1: Brady violation. Who called who first? How did this payment
Speaker 1: come about? So I emailed the Attorney General's office for
Speaker 1: some clarity, and they directly contradicted Violet Ellison's testimony again,
Speaker 1: writing three years after the trial, Ellison requested the cash
Speaker 1: reward that had been offered by the governor, and since
Speaker 1: then Alabama's Attorney General completely reversed the state's narrative. The
Speaker 1: AG's offic now claims that the prosecutor asked for the
Speaker 1: reward to be paid unbeknownst to Violet Ellison. But former
Speaker 1: DA David Barber told me he wouldn't do that, that
Speaker 1: rewards were triggered by law enforcement or a witness themselves
Speaker 1: applying for a reward, and Prosecutor Jeff Wallace said he
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with rewards. Everyone I asked gave
Speaker 1: a different answer, pointing the finger in a different direction.
Speaker 1: Nobody wanted to own up to triggering the payment. The
Speaker 1: state continuously changing its story on this important detail isn't
Speaker 1: just sloppy, it's incredibly suspicious. It takes nine months for
Speaker 1: Judge Pulliam to issue her decision. She writes that she
Speaker 1: found Violet Ellison to be confident, describing her as well
Speaker 1: dressed and well spoken, and that her articulate testimony outweighed
Speaker 1: the evidence presented by to Forrest Johnson's attorneys. William says
Speaker 1: the documents don't prove that Violet Ellison knew about the
Speaker 1: money when she testified and don't amount to misconduct by
Speaker 1: the state. She doesn't address the fact that it took
Speaker 1: the state seventeen years to admit they had paid Violet Ellison.
Speaker 3: Really, what she was doing was validating the credibility of
Speaker 3: Violet Ellison, saying I didn't know that there was even
Speaker 3: a reward offered in the case, which is impossible to believe,
Speaker 3: and then validating her testimony that three years after the trial,
Speaker 3: not having known that there was even a reward offered
Speaker 3: in the case, the DA's office out of the blue
Speaker 3: caught her up one day and said, Hey, remember that
Speaker 3: case you testified in. We have five thousand dollars of
Speaker 3: the state's money that we'd like to give you for that.
Speaker 3: Do you want to come down and get it? And
Speaker 3: she said sure and came down and got it, which
Speaker 3: is also impossible to believe.
Speaker 5: To.
Speaker 1: Forrest's legal team appeals the decision, and in April of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, I attend oral arguments in front of
Speaker 1: the State Court of Criminal Appeals. I notice all five
Speaker 1: judges on the court are white. In fact, everyone in
Speaker 1: the courtroom is white. The disconnect is striking to Forest Johnson.
Speaker 1: Isn't here All these white people are discussing the fate
Speaker 1: of a black man who is locked away on death row,
Speaker 1: completely absent from this process. This dynamic isn't unique to
Speaker 1: this hearing. Black people make up twenty seven percent of
Speaker 1: Alabama's overall population, but fifty four percent of the state
Speaker 1: prison population. There are no black appellate judges and only
Speaker 1: three of the forty two elected das and Alabama are black.
Speaker 1: This lack of representation means it's almost always white people
Speaker 1: making policy and punishment decisions that impact a disproportionate poor
Speaker 1: and black population. To Forest, hearing in the Court of
Speaker 1: Criminal Appeals lasts just forty nine minutes. It's another denial.
Speaker 2: At the end of the trial, once the verdict was
Speaker 2: read and everything was done, the jury was finished with
Speaker 2: their job. Now, I remember the judge saying that to
Speaker 2: Forrest would be sentenced at another date.
Speaker 1: Monique Kicks again, who served on the jury into Forrest's
Speaker 1: second trial. Monique wanted to talk with me after she
Speaker 1: saw a news story about Violet Ellison and the reward payment,
Speaker 1: so I made the hour long drive to her house
Speaker 1: to speak to her in person. Monique was twenty seven
Speaker 1: years old when she voted for Forest's guilt and a
Speaker 1: death sentence. As soon as that was over, security quickly
Speaker 1: ushered the jury out the back door of the courthouse
Speaker 1: to the parking deck. She never found out if the
Speaker 1: judge agreed that to Forrest should be put to death
Speaker 1: or spend life in prison.
Speaker 2: I never heard anything, didn't see it in the news,
Speaker 2: may have dismissed it that night. The internet wasn't a thing.
Speaker 2: I couldn't look it up, google it, so I honestly
Speaker 2: never knew ultimately what happened to mister Johnson.
Speaker 1: Twenty years later, Monique gets a book recommendation from a friend.
Speaker 1: The Sun Does Shine, a memoir by Anthony Ray Hinton,
Speaker 1: a black man from Birmingham who was sent to death
Speaker 1: row in nineteen eighty five despite a solid alibi and
Speaker 1: no eyewitnesses tying him to the murder. He was exonerated
Speaker 1: thirty years later.
Speaker 2: And so I was reading the book book and as
Speaker 2: I'm reading the book, I'm like, oh, wow, this was
Speaker 2: set in Birmingham in the eighties. I was like, I
Speaker 2: was on a jury in the nineties in Jefferson County
Speaker 2: in Birmingham. That's interesting. By the time I got to
Speaker 2: the end of the book, I remember I looked at
Speaker 2: my husband and I said, Oh, my goodness, I think
Speaker 2: we convicted an innocent man, because I was like, there's
Speaker 2: no way ten years later that the injustices and the
Speaker 2: corruption that were going on in the system had cleaned
Speaker 2: themselves up. About two weeks later, I'm sitting on my
Speaker 2: sofa and I opened up my local news app to
Speaker 2: just read the headlines to Forrest Johnson has been claiming
Speaker 2: innocence for over twenty years on death row, something to
Speaker 2: that effect. And I opened up the article and started reading,
Speaker 2: and I just started sobbing, like uncontrollable, because I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: my goodness, we did convict an innocent man and he's
Speaker 2: been on death row all these years, and I didn't
Speaker 2: know it.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until twenty nineteen, more than two decades after
Speaker 1: she voted to convict to Forrest Johnson, that Monique learned
Speaker 1: that the state's key witness, Violet Ellison, was paid in
Speaker 1: secret for her testimony.
Speaker 2: You know, the star witness was paid and the defense
Speaker 2: didn't know it. The jurors didn't know it. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I was shocked. And then I was like, well, how
Speaker 2: shocked were to Forrest and his family when we accused
Speaker 2: him of being guilty? So I just can't imagine what
Speaker 2: that was like to them. Another blow.
Speaker 1: At the time of the trial, Monique found Violet Ellison
Speaker 1: to be composed and confident. Do you think that your
Speaker 1: impression of her would have been different had you known
Speaker 1: she was being paid five thousand dollars?
Speaker 2: I definitely believe we would have as a jury talked
Speaker 2: about that, like how credible is this testimony? She's being
Speaker 2: paid for it. Yes, I do think there would have
Speaker 2: been conversations about it, and I do believe it would
Speaker 2: have changed out could have changed outcome. I really felt
Speaker 2: like the jury was used in this big game of injustice.
Speaker 2: We were just just like, here's some theories. We're just
Speaker 2: gonna keep throwing them out until we can get a
Speaker 2: group of people together to believe it, and I just
Speaker 2: feel like we were being used in this game. They
Speaker 2: needed a conviction. It was a high profile case, you know,
Speaker 2: it was a sheriff's deputy. Somebody needed to pay for it.
Speaker 2: And to me, it just seems like we're just going
Speaker 2: to throw these things out, gather people together until we
Speaker 2: get some that believe it, And unfortunately I was in
Speaker 2: the group that believed it.
Speaker 1: Monique is one of three jurors that I've interviewed. All
Speaker 1: three regret voting to convict to Forest Johnson. None of
Speaker 1: them could quite put their finger on why they were
Speaker 1: convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, other than
Speaker 1: believing Violet Ellison. Once they learned she was paid for
Speaker 1: her testimony, it was like to Forrest suddenly became real
Speaker 1: to them. The weight of their decision was crushing. But
Speaker 1: besides speaking out about their regret, there's nothing they can do.
Speaker 1: They can't take back their votes. They have to live
Speaker 1: with their decision.
Speaker 2: Felt a lot of grief, Shane guilt for having been
Speaker 2: a part of this. I'm pretty even kill person. I'm
Speaker 2: not a cryer, you know how some people cry it out.
Speaker 2: Anything that's not my go to. I'm not a big crier,
Speaker 2: but anytime the subject comes up, it is like brief
Speaker 2: deep in my soul and I just get very emotional.
Speaker 1: I felt like I needed to talk to the person
Speaker 1: at the center of the case outside of courtrooms and legalies.
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear from Violet Ellison. She has a
Speaker 1: small brick house on a busy street in Birmingham. When
Speaker 1: I go there, the main front door is open, and
Speaker 1: as I walk closer, I can see Violet Ellison sitting
Speaker 1: inside wearing a robe. She stands up and turns to
Speaker 1: face me. Hey are you miss Violet Ellison? Miss Ellison,
Speaker 1: my name is Beth. I'm a journalist and I was
Speaker 1: hoping to talk to you about the Deputy Hardy murder
Speaker 1: that you were a witness in. Eventually she steps out
Speaker 1: onto the porch, where we continue the conversation.
Speaker 5: And I feel like I'm just being really cute for
Speaker 5: telling the truth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I do.
Speaker 1: I don't want you well, I just wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you about the issue of the reward, since that what
Speaker 1: is That's what I mean. I talked to Violet Ellison
Speaker 1: for twenty minutes and she tells me no less than
Speaker 1: a dozen times that she did not know about the
Speaker 1: reward when she came forward to talk to police, and
Speaker 1: that she did not know about it when she testified
Speaker 1: against Forrest at two trials. You do you think about
Speaker 1: the fact that he's on death row though, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you said you don't really to support the
Speaker 1: death penalty.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well I did at first, you know, in trouble
Speaker 5: my spirit, and as time went by, you try to
Speaker 5: forget the bad things that you know happened.
Speaker 1: But it's a little surreal for me to be face
Speaker 1: to face with Violet Ellison, this woman who's the lynchpin
Speaker 1: of the entire case against the forest. As we say goodbye,
Speaker 1: she delivers the most ironic thank you I've ever received,
Speaker 1: telling me she appreciates me talking to her directly instead
Speaker 1: of relying on someone else's characterization of what she said.
Speaker 10: You know, nobody has come to me like you to
Speaker 10: see how I feel about it, and they just report
Speaker 10: and on what somebody say hearsay. And I don't like
Speaker 10: that because you'll never get the truth like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a man on death row because the
Speaker 1: jurors believed Violet Ellison. Now we know what the jury
Speaker 1: didn't know at trial, that she was paid for her
Speaker 1: testimony and that the state hid this information. They told
Speaker 1: the jury that Violet Ellison was credible and believable, and
Speaker 1: they still say that, but they weren't truthful about the reward.
Speaker 1: So why should we believe how they characterize their key witness.
Speaker 7: I hate to see it. I know that's my grandmother.
Speaker 7: That's a true scam. Audi deal in a way she
Speaker 7: can get a dollar. I'm telling you she ain't that tight.
Speaker 7: That's just gonna help Tom out, just to help them.
Speaker 7: It gotta have money, how it gotta have money at.
Speaker 1: Long Wow, that's next time. Ear Witness is a production
Speaker 1: of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company
Speaker 1: Number One. Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis,
Speaker 1: and me Beth Shelburn. The investigative reporting for this series
Speaker 1: was done by me and MARAA. McNamara. Producers are Mara McNamara,
Speaker 1: Hannah Bial and Jackie Polly Karakornhaber is our senior producer.
Speaker 1: Britt Spangler is our sound designer. Additional story editing from
Speaker 1: Marie Sutton, fact check help from Catherine Newhan, and special
Speaker 1: thanks to to Forrest Johnson's legal defense team. You can
Speaker 1: follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. To see behind the scenes content from
Speaker 1: our investigation, visit Lava for goood dot com. Slash ear
Speaker 1: Witness