The Reckon Interview is the home for the best stories about the South. Each week, National Murrow Award-winning host John Hammontree examines American culture through a Southern lens by speaking with authors, entertainers, artists, leaders and thinkers to better understand the most interesting region of America and learn how we can each craft our own narratives about the South.
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The Reckon Interview is the home for the best stories about the South. Each week, National Murrow Award-winning host John Hammontree examines American culture through a Southern lens by speaking with authors, entertainers, artists, leaders and thinkers to better understand the most interesting region of America and learn how we can each craft our own narratives about the South.
Will Alabama execute an innocent man? Beth Shelburne on the story behind 'Earwitness'
Reckon Interview
51 minutes
1 year ago
Will Alabama execute an innocent man? Beth Shelburne on the story behind 'Earwitness'
Will the state of Alabama execute a man for a crime he didn’t commit?
That’s a question that’s been raised far too many times in the last decade, but right now it’s being raised for Toforest Johnson. And, shockingly, it’s a question being raised by the former attorney who prosecuted Johnson and put him on death row. Birmingham’s current district attorney, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, and a former Attorney General of Alabama have all called Johnson’s conviction into question. Three jurors from the original trial have also now said they feel duped.
So what happened?
In 1995, William Hardy, a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy was killed while working off duty as a security guard at a hotel in Birmingham. There were no witnesses to the murder. Meanwhile ten witnesses can confirm Toforest Johnson was at a club four miles away in downtown Birmingham. How did he become accused and then convicted of the murder of Hardy?
That’s the story that Beth Shelburne unravels in her hit podcast Earwitness. She brings to life the stories of investigators and prosecutors desperate to close the case, the witnesses whose testimony seems to change by the minute, the judicial system that may have covered up a $5,000 payment to a witness, and the stories of the people working to get Johnson free.
It's an important story and one that's now grabbed the attention of high profile celebrities like Kim Kardashian. But it hasn't yet persuaded Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall. Shelburne also examines why the state of Alabama continues to be marching toward Johnson’s execution despite the evidence of his innocence.
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Reckon Interview
The Reckon Interview is the home for the best stories about the South. Each week, National Murrow Award-winning host John Hammontree examines American culture through a Southern lens by speaking with authors, entertainers, artists, leaders and thinkers to better understand the most interesting region of America and learn how we can each craft our own narratives about the South.
