A court in the US state of Missouri on Tuesday overturned the conviction of a man who had been in prison for 28 years for murder. Lamar Johnson, who had said he was innocent all along, was allowed to go home after the hearing. “This is unbelievable,” he told the press.
Johnson was sentenced to life in prison in 1994 for the murder of Marcus Boyd. Boyd was shot dead by masked men on the front porch of Johnson’s home. Johnson indicated several times that he was not home at the time of the attack. One Phil Campbell was also convicted of the murder.
A lawyer filed a motion with the court in August to have Johnson released. After joint research with the non-profit organization Innocence Project, she became convinced of his innocence.
When announcing the verdict on Tuesday, the judge said that for his release there had to be “reliable evidence of actual innocence,” the news agency writes. AP.
And so there was that evidence. It was built around, among other things, the fact that an original witness retracted his statement. In addition, a prisoner stated that he committed the murder with Campbell, and not with Johnson.
The Missouri Attorney General’s office continues to insist that Johnson is guilty. Lawyers for Johnson reacted angrily to that, saying the attorney general “was comfortable letting Johnson languish and die in prison.”
