A Missouri judge has vacated a 50-year-old man’s murder conviction after he served more than half of his life in prison.
The court noted his lawyers were able to present “reliable evidence of actual innocence,” including testimony from two men who admitted to signing affidavits they were the ones who pulled the trigger and killed the man in question in the mid-’90s.
On Tuesday, Feb. 14, Lamar Johnson’s life sentence was overturned by St. Louis Circuit Judge David Mason. He had served 28 years for allegedly killing Marcus Boyd in October 1994, but he was able to spend Valentine’s Day 2023 with family and friends. That’s thanks to the support of St. Louis Circuit attorney Kim Gardner, who filed a motion in August 2022 to have Johnson freed, along with the Innocence Project.
Gardner tweeted, “Today the courts righted a wrong – vacating the sentence of Mr. Lamar Johnson following his wrongful conviction in 1995.”
“This case says that in the state of Missouri, a person’s right to justice and liberty is valued more than the finality of an unjust conviction. My office fought long and hard … We are pleased that Mr. Johnson will have the opportunity to be the man and member of our community that he desires.”
Authorities say Boyd, then 25, was fatally shot on his porch by two masked assailants over an argument about drug money amounting to about $40, CBS News reports. Johnson, who has maintained his innocence since being arrested, says that while he was a drug dealer at the time, he did not kill the victim.
Johnson’s alibi was that he was with his girlfriend Erika Barrow at the time of the shooting. She testified during his trial that the two were together the entire night,…
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