Lamar Johnson’s long fight to prove his innocence paid off and helped change state law: ‘I can’t say I knew it would happen’
Lamar Johnson, center, looks toward friends and family members as his attorneys celebrate on Tuesday.Lamar Johnson, center, looks toward friends and family members as his attorneys celebrate on Tuesday.As he languished in aprison for nearly three decades, Lamar Johnson never stopped fighting to prove his innocence, even when it meant doing much of the legal work himself.
“You have to distinguish yourself. I think the best way to get [the court’s] attention, or anyone’s attention, is to do much of the work yourself,” Johnson said. “That means making discovery requests from law enforcement agencies and the courts, and that’s what I did. I wrote everybody.”Read more Decades of studies show that eyewitness testimony is right only about half the time – and since Johnson’s conviction, across the country there has been a re-examination of eyewitness identification procedures, which have been shown to often reproduce racial biases.
“He said, ‘You might not believe me, but I’m innocent,’” Kidd recalled. “I said, ‘Oh yeah? You might not believe me but I’m innocent, too!’” Kidd talked to an Innocence Project investigator and made the case that since Johnson had already done so much background work himself, the process would have a head start. The organization took on his case.
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