This is America
Judge faults prosecutors for conflicts as she rejects their claim an innocent man was convicted
By Emily Hoerner | August 23, 2019
Print Email
A St. Louis judge dismissed a motion for a new trial Friday in the case of a prisoner the top prosecutor there says is innocent.
In denying the motion, 22nd Circuit Judge Elizabeth Hogan said in her ruling that the request to vacate Lamar Johnson’s 1995 murder conviction was 24 years too late. Missouri laws do not allow her to review such claims, she found.
The city of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner plans to appeal the ruling, press representative Susan Ryan said. One of Johnson’s attorneys, Lindsay Runnels, said they are reviewing the judge’s decision: “Not a single word addresses the clear, convincing, and overwhelming evidence that Mr. Johnson is innocent.”
Investigations that expose, influence and inform. Emailed directly to you.
Last month, Gardner filed a motion for new trial asking the court to overturn Johnson’s murder conviction after a review by her office’s conviction integrity unit uncovered a slew of evidence that called Johnson’s guilt into question. In the motion, Gardner’s office said that police fabrications and prosecutorial misconduct led to Johnson’s wrongful conviction.
In October 1994, Marcus Boyd was gunned down on his porch by two ski-masked assailants. Another man, James Gregory Elking, was on the porch with Boyd but was left unharmed. He identified Johnson as one of the shooters at trial, but has since recanted. Elking was paid more than $4,000 after he agreed to cooperate with authorities, but that evidence was withheld from the defense, the motion for a new trial states.
Johnson remains imprisoned at the Jefferson City Correctional Center.
Midwest Innocence Project
Lamar Johnson
After Gardner’s office filed the request to overturn Johnson’s conviction in July, Hogan on her own authority appointed the Missouri Attorney General’s office to also represent the state in the case. In court Hogan explained that she had done so because of a potential conflict the circuit attorney’s office had in alleging wrongdoing by a former employee.
The judge’s appointment of the state attorney general led to a sharp rebuke from more than 40 local elected prosecutors across the country who, in a friend-of-the-court-brief, balked at the idea that Gardner’s choice to correct an unjust conviction constituted a conflict.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office said in a legal brief that Hogan was right to appoint the office to assist in representing the state in the case, and that regardless Hogan has no right to review the matter. Missouri currently lacks a process that allows for the review of old convictions in the circuit court where the case originated.
The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Last week, Gardner’s office in a motion joined by Johnson’s attorneys asked the judge to dismiss the attorney general’s legal brief, noting that while Gardner was elected by voters in St. Louis, the Attorney General was appointed by a sitting governor who also was not elected to that post by Missourians.
Instead, Hogan sided with the attorney general’s office.
Hogan said in her ruling Friday that she had appointed the state attorney general’s office to the case due to her concerns about what she believed were two conflicts of interest: Attorneys for Johnson may have violated court rules in interviewing former jurors, and that the circuit attorney was alleging prosecutorial misconduct against a former employee.
In Hogan’s defense of appointing outside counsel, she contended that attorneys from the Midwest Innocence Project and the Circuit Attorney’s Office had violated settled laws that prohibit jurors from speaking about cases after verdicts have been rendered.
“The Court has never received a request, nor did it, in its discretion, allow any individual to contact any of the jurors for any purpose in this matter,” Hogan said in her ruling. When Gardner’s office became aware of what Hogan said were violations by the defense, the prosecutor did not alert the court but instead used the information and released that information to the media. That, she wrote, caused concern about the “integrity” of the legal process.
Hogan also noted that after filing the motion, the circuit attorney chose to release public documents associated with the case to national media outlets.
The judge said that Gardner’s office was not following the Innocence Project’s guidelines on how conviction integrity units should operate, since the assistant circuit attorney on the case, Jeffrey Estes, was not exclusively dedicated to reviewing past convictions.
In relation to the more than $4,000 in undisclosed payments made to key eyewitness Elking, the judge noted that no one from the agency that made the payments was interviewed regarding procedures and practices for relocating crime victims. “This missing information would suggest that the allegation of prosecutorial misconduct is non-conclusory,” she wrote.
Hogan said in her ruling that there was no evidence provided that assistant circuit attorney Dwight Warren, who prosecuted the case against Johnson, was aware of the payments and called it “troubling” that Estes had not asked eyewitness Elking any questions during a deposition.
Runnels, one of Johnson’s attorneys, said in a statement that her team disagreed with Hogan’s observation that payments to a victim can be concealed because they come from a victim’s compensation fund.
“The United States and Missouri constitutions require disclosure of impeaching and exculpatory evidence and we believe cash payments to the sole eyewitness — who has recanted his manufactured identification — clearly fall into that category,” she said.
Hogan in her ruling said that she believes both Johnson’s attorneys and the circuit attorney had exhibited “problematic conduct” and that, to protect the integrity of the legal process, she appointed the attorney general’s office.
The business manager of the police union representing most rank-and-file St. Louis Metropolitan police officers, Jeff Roorda, has publicly and repeatedly clashed with Gardner. He told Injustice Watch last month in a phone interview after Johnson’s motion for a new trial was filed that Gardner was at war with police, and has “no integrity.” The judge’s husband, Joseph Hogan, has represented members of Roorda’s St. Louis Police Officers Association on criminal and disciplinary matters in recent years.
In one case, the judge’s husband represented St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officer Rory Bruce. The officer was acquitted of assault charges in 2013, which were brought after a video surfaced showing Bruce hitting a handcuffed juvenile. At that time, Joseph Hogan told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the union was providing the payment for his legal services.
Joseph Hogan also recently represented St. Louis police officer Mark Taylor, who pleaded guilty last year to a federal bribery charge for his role in a scheme to pass on unredacted information about car accident victims to a chiropractor in exchange for cash.
The judge’s husband also represents non-police defendants in criminal cases according to court records. Unlike several other attorneys who have also represented members of the police union in criminal and disciplinary matters, Joseph Hogan does not appear to have donated to Roorda’s election campaign.
Elizabeth Hogan is currently presiding over two cases in which St. Louis Metropolitan police officers were charged criminally. According to court records, no issue has been raised regarding a conflict with the judge presiding over the cases of William Olsten or Joseph Schmitt, who are both charged with assault and armed criminal action after an off-duty shooting outside of a bar earlier this year
https://www.injusticewatch.org/news...ts-their-claim-an-innocent-man-was-convicted/
------------
St. Louis judge denies Lamar Johnson's motion for new trial in 1994 murder case
The decision leaves Lamar Johnson in prison, despite efforts from the city prosecutor and a regional criminal justice advocacy group to win him a new trial.
Johnson, 45, is serving a life sentence for the 1994 murder of Marcus L. Boyd, 25, who died after being shot multiple times over a drug dispute in the 3900 block of Louisiana Avenue.
Last month, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner’s Conviction Integrity Unit, in collaboration with the Midwest Innocence Project, declared that Johnson had been wrongly convicted as a result of misconduct by police and a former longtime St. Louis prosecutor. That former prosecutor, Dwight Warren, has called the allegations “nonsense.”
Circuit Judge Elizabeth Hogan’s ruling on Friday said Johnson may still appeal to a higher court.
“The conclusion that this court has no authority to entertain this new trial motion does not mean persons raising claims such as defendant’s here are without a remedy,” Hogan wrote.
Download PDF
She notes in her ruling, however, that Johnson has tried three times before to appeal, always unsuccessfully.
Her order also said lawyers in Gardner’s office and the Midwest Innocence Project may have violated court rules when, two years ago, they contacted jurors who served on Johnson’s trial and told them they had evidence that had been withheld at trial.
“The court has never received a request, nor did it, in its discretion, allow any individual to contact any of the jurors for any purpose in this matter,” Hogan wrote. “This conduct has caused the court to be concerned about the integrity of the legal process in this case.”
A spokeswoman for Gardner said Friday that the office would appeal Hogan’s ruling. Lindsay Runnels, of the Morgan Pilate law firm in Kansas City and the Midwest Innocence Project, said in an email that they “respectfully disagree” with the ruling. “For all the discussion by the Court, not a single word addresses the clear, convincing, and overwhelming evidence that Mr. Johnson is innocent,” she wrote.
Motion for new trial for Lamar Johnson
Gardner’s office and Johnson’s lawyers said St. Louis police had coerced the only eyewitness into identifying Johnson in a lineup despite that witness’s claims that he couldn’t identify either of two shooters because they wore ski masks.
Conviction Integrity Unit report on Lamar Johnson case
In the motion for a new trial, Gardner’s office claimed a former prosecutor had concealed an effort to pay a witness for his testimony against Johnson and that the witness lied on the stand.
But Hogan wrote in her ruling on Friday that Gardner’s claims of prosecutorial misconduct over alleged payments are inconclusive.
Gardner has said publicly that she believes it is her duty to fight for Johnson to “correct the wrong.”
Download PDF
Earlier this month, Hogan appointed the attorney general’s office to join the case, saying Gardner might have a conflict because of Gardner’s claims against the prosecutor in her own office.
Last week, 43 prosecutors from across the country, including St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, filed a brief in the case supporting Gardner’s push for a new trial “to remedy the injustice uncovered in this case.”
In a filing last week, the Missouri attorney general’s office said the St. Louis Circuit Court’s jurisdiction over the case expired when Johnson was sentenced in 1995.
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local...cle_add3e1eb-2d62-518b-8ed8-5b56b9af8f94.html
Judge faults prosecutors for conflicts as she rejects their claim an innocent man was convicted
By Emily Hoerner | August 23, 2019
Print Email
A St. Louis judge dismissed a motion for a new trial Friday in the case of a prisoner the top prosecutor there says is innocent.
In denying the motion, 22nd Circuit Judge Elizabeth Hogan said in her ruling that the request to vacate Lamar Johnson’s 1995 murder conviction was 24 years too late. Missouri laws do not allow her to review such claims, she found.
The city of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner plans to appeal the ruling, press representative Susan Ryan said. One of Johnson’s attorneys, Lindsay Runnels, said they are reviewing the judge’s decision: “Not a single word addresses the clear, convincing, and overwhelming evidence that Mr. Johnson is innocent.”
Investigations that expose, influence and inform. Emailed directly to you.
Last month, Gardner filed a motion for new trial asking the court to overturn Johnson’s murder conviction after a review by her office’s conviction integrity unit uncovered a slew of evidence that called Johnson’s guilt into question. In the motion, Gardner’s office said that police fabrications and prosecutorial misconduct led to Johnson’s wrongful conviction.
In October 1994, Marcus Boyd was gunned down on his porch by two ski-masked assailants. Another man, James Gregory Elking, was on the porch with Boyd but was left unharmed. He identified Johnson as one of the shooters at trial, but has since recanted. Elking was paid more than $4,000 after he agreed to cooperate with authorities, but that evidence was withheld from the defense, the motion for a new trial states.
Johnson remains imprisoned at the Jefferson City Correctional Center.
Midwest Innocence Project
Lamar Johnson
After Gardner’s office filed the request to overturn Johnson’s conviction in July, Hogan on her own authority appointed the Missouri Attorney General’s office to also represent the state in the case. In court Hogan explained that she had done so because of a potential conflict the circuit attorney’s office had in alleging wrongdoing by a former employee.
The judge’s appointment of the state attorney general led to a sharp rebuke from more than 40 local elected prosecutors across the country who, in a friend-of-the-court-brief, balked at the idea that Gardner’s choice to correct an unjust conviction constituted a conflict.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office said in a legal brief that Hogan was right to appoint the office to assist in representing the state in the case, and that regardless Hogan has no right to review the matter. Missouri currently lacks a process that allows for the review of old convictions in the circuit court where the case originated.
The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Last week, Gardner’s office in a motion joined by Johnson’s attorneys asked the judge to dismiss the attorney general’s legal brief, noting that while Gardner was elected by voters in St. Louis, the Attorney General was appointed by a sitting governor who also was not elected to that post by Missourians.
Instead, Hogan sided with the attorney general’s office.
Hogan said in her ruling Friday that she had appointed the state attorney general’s office to the case due to her concerns about what she believed were two conflicts of interest: Attorneys for Johnson may have violated court rules in interviewing former jurors, and that the circuit attorney was alleging prosecutorial misconduct against a former employee.
In Hogan’s defense of appointing outside counsel, she contended that attorneys from the Midwest Innocence Project and the Circuit Attorney’s Office had violated settled laws that prohibit jurors from speaking about cases after verdicts have been rendered.
“The Court has never received a request, nor did it, in its discretion, allow any individual to contact any of the jurors for any purpose in this matter,” Hogan said in her ruling. When Gardner’s office became aware of what Hogan said were violations by the defense, the prosecutor did not alert the court but instead used the information and released that information to the media. That, she wrote, caused concern about the “integrity” of the legal process.
Hogan also noted that after filing the motion, the circuit attorney chose to release public documents associated with the case to national media outlets.
The judge said that Gardner’s office was not following the Innocence Project’s guidelines on how conviction integrity units should operate, since the assistant circuit attorney on the case, Jeffrey Estes, was not exclusively dedicated to reviewing past convictions.
In relation to the more than $4,000 in undisclosed payments made to key eyewitness Elking, the judge noted that no one from the agency that made the payments was interviewed regarding procedures and practices for relocating crime victims. “This missing information would suggest that the allegation of prosecutorial misconduct is non-conclusory,” she wrote.
Hogan said in her ruling that there was no evidence provided that assistant circuit attorney Dwight Warren, who prosecuted the case against Johnson, was aware of the payments and called it “troubling” that Estes had not asked eyewitness Elking any questions during a deposition.
Runnels, one of Johnson’s attorneys, said in a statement that her team disagreed with Hogan’s observation that payments to a victim can be concealed because they come from a victim’s compensation fund.
“The United States and Missouri constitutions require disclosure of impeaching and exculpatory evidence and we believe cash payments to the sole eyewitness — who has recanted his manufactured identification — clearly fall into that category,” she said.
Hogan in her ruling said that she believes both Johnson’s attorneys and the circuit attorney had exhibited “problematic conduct” and that, to protect the integrity of the legal process, she appointed the attorney general’s office.
The business manager of the police union representing most rank-and-file St. Louis Metropolitan police officers, Jeff Roorda, has publicly and repeatedly clashed with Gardner. He told Injustice Watch last month in a phone interview after Johnson’s motion for a new trial was filed that Gardner was at war with police, and has “no integrity.” The judge’s husband, Joseph Hogan, has represented members of Roorda’s St. Louis Police Officers Association on criminal and disciplinary matters in recent years.
In one case, the judge’s husband represented St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officer Rory Bruce. The officer was acquitted of assault charges in 2013, which were brought after a video surfaced showing Bruce hitting a handcuffed juvenile. At that time, Joseph Hogan told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the union was providing the payment for his legal services.
Joseph Hogan also recently represented St. Louis police officer Mark Taylor, who pleaded guilty last year to a federal bribery charge for his role in a scheme to pass on unredacted information about car accident victims to a chiropractor in exchange for cash.
The judge’s husband also represents non-police defendants in criminal cases according to court records. Unlike several other attorneys who have also represented members of the police union in criminal and disciplinary matters, Joseph Hogan does not appear to have donated to Roorda’s election campaign.
Elizabeth Hogan is currently presiding over two cases in which St. Louis Metropolitan police officers were charged criminally. According to court records, no issue has been raised regarding a conflict with the judge presiding over the cases of William Olsten or Joseph Schmitt, who are both charged with assault and armed criminal action after an off-duty shooting outside of a bar earlier this year
https://www.injusticewatch.org/news...ts-their-claim-an-innocent-man-was-convicted/
------------
St. Louis judge denies Lamar Johnson's motion for new trial in 1994 murder case
- By Joel Currier St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- Aug 24, 2019
The decision leaves Lamar Johnson in prison, despite efforts from the city prosecutor and a regional criminal justice advocacy group to win him a new trial.
Johnson, 45, is serving a life sentence for the 1994 murder of Marcus L. Boyd, 25, who died after being shot multiple times over a drug dispute in the 3900 block of Louisiana Avenue.
Last month, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner’s Conviction Integrity Unit, in collaboration with the Midwest Innocence Project, declared that Johnson had been wrongly convicted as a result of misconduct by police and a former longtime St. Louis prosecutor. That former prosecutor, Dwight Warren, has called the allegations “nonsense.”
Circuit Judge Elizabeth Hogan’s ruling on Friday said Johnson may still appeal to a higher court.
“The conclusion that this court has no authority to entertain this new trial motion does not mean persons raising claims such as defendant’s here are without a remedy,” Hogan wrote.
Download PDF
She notes in her ruling, however, that Johnson has tried three times before to appeal, always unsuccessfully.
Her order also said lawyers in Gardner’s office and the Midwest Innocence Project may have violated court rules when, two years ago, they contacted jurors who served on Johnson’s trial and told them they had evidence that had been withheld at trial.
“The court has never received a request, nor did it, in its discretion, allow any individual to contact any of the jurors for any purpose in this matter,” Hogan wrote. “This conduct has caused the court to be concerned about the integrity of the legal process in this case.”
A spokeswoman for Gardner said Friday that the office would appeal Hogan’s ruling. Lindsay Runnels, of the Morgan Pilate law firm in Kansas City and the Midwest Innocence Project, said in an email that they “respectfully disagree” with the ruling. “For all the discussion by the Court, not a single word addresses the clear, convincing, and overwhelming evidence that Mr. Johnson is innocent,” she wrote.
Motion for new trial for Lamar Johnson
Gardner’s office and Johnson’s lawyers said St. Louis police had coerced the only eyewitness into identifying Johnson in a lineup despite that witness’s claims that he couldn’t identify either of two shooters because they wore ski masks.
Conviction Integrity Unit report on Lamar Johnson case
In the motion for a new trial, Gardner’s office claimed a former prosecutor had concealed an effort to pay a witness for his testimony against Johnson and that the witness lied on the stand.
But Hogan wrote in her ruling on Friday that Gardner’s claims of prosecutorial misconduct over alleged payments are inconclusive.
Gardner has said publicly that she believes it is her duty to fight for Johnson to “correct the wrong.”
Download PDF
Earlier this month, Hogan appointed the attorney general’s office to join the case, saying Gardner might have a conflict because of Gardner’s claims against the prosecutor in her own office.
Last week, 43 prosecutors from across the country, including St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, filed a brief in the case supporting Gardner’s push for a new trial “to remedy the injustice uncovered in this case.”
In a filing last week, the Missouri attorney general’s office said the St. Louis Circuit Court’s jurisdiction over the case expired when Johnson was sentenced in 1995.
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local...cle_add3e1eb-2d62-518b-8ed8-5b56b9af8f94.html
