Lamar Johnson (wrongful conviction)

Lamar Johnson is an American man from St. Louis, who was arrested and wrongfully convicted for the 1994 murder of Marcus L. Boyd, who was fatally shot multiple times over a drug dispute in St. Louis. Johnson was sentenced one year later. Johnson is currently serving a life sentence. [1]. A new report from St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner and the Conviction Integrity Unit in collaboration with the Midwest Innocence Project claims that Johnson didn’t kill Boyd and that he is the victim of a wrongful conviction, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The report says that police and former St. Louis prosecutor Dwight Warren of misconduct in the form of perjury, false testimony, and even the alleged financial compensation of the sole eyewitness. That witness was allegedly Coerced and paid over $4,000 and they later recanted their statements, CNN reports.

Murder of Marcus Boyd

Johnson was convicted of the 1994 murder of Marcus Boyd. In order for Johnson to have actually killed Boyd, he would have needed to leave an apartment party, travel three miles to commit the murder, and return to the apartment on foot all within the span of five minutes. While this is beyond the realm of possibility, Johnson's case was doomed by investigative fabrication, perjured testimony, the suppression of exculpatory evidence, and an unreliable jailhouse informant. One of the men responsible for his conviction was lead detective Joseph Nickerson, who falsified four witness statements and even offered a man a $4,000 bribe to identify Johnson as the killer. [2]

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who stands by Johnson's innocence, filed a motion for a new trial in July 2019. Circuit Judge Elizabeth B. Hogan ruled against the motion just one month later, saying that it was 24 years too late. Hogan stood by a court rule that only allowed for a motion for a new trial to be scheduled within 15 days of a conviction.

See also

https://themip.org/clients/lamarjohnson/

References
  1. https://www.oxygen.com/crime-time/lamar-johnson-innocent-marcus-boyd-murder-spend-24-years-prison-prosecutor-says. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. https://reason.com/2020/02/12/45-prosecutors-ask-missouris-supreme-court-to-give-lamar-johnson-a-new-trial/. Missing or empty |title= (help)
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