Lawyers for Toforest Johnson, an Alabama Death Row inmate whose conviction has long been questioned even by the original prosecutor, criticized the Alabama Attorney General’s Office in a court filing Monday morning, calling its actions in the case “alarming.”

“The Attorney General’s actions and inactions here are cause for serious concern,” wrote Johnson’s legal team.

The comments came in the lawyers’ latest filing asking Jefferson County Circuit Judge Kandice Pickett to toss out Johnson’s conviction and order a new trial.

Johnson, now 52, was convicted of capital murder in 1998 for the 1995 death of Jefferson County Deputy William G. Hardy, who was shot to death while working a part-time security job for a Birmingham hotel. Johnson has been on death row since 1998 for the killing, which he has always denied.

The case has been in legal limbo for years as appeals played out in different courts. But in 2020, Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr—who wasn’t in office when Johnson was convicted—voiced his concerns about Johnson’s case and asked for a new trial. That motion for a new trial was pending in Jefferson County while the Supreme Court looked at a previous appeal, but the nation’s highest court declined to review the case in 2023.

Since that denial, the case has been ongoing in Jefferson County.

“A prosecutor’s duty is not merely to secure convictions, but to seek justice,” Carr wrote in 2020, and he detailed the investigation that prompted his office to conclude “that Johnson’s conviction was fundamentally unreliable and that the duty to seek justice required intervention in this case.”

Despite Carr questioning the conviction, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office has said Johnson belongs on death row.

In a January court filing, the AG’s Office argued Johnson shouldn’t be allowed to litigate the same claims again. The court records “speak for themselves,” the office said.

And Carr’s opinion “does not provide an independent, viable legal claim,” Marshall’s office wrote.

“Carr has had no role in this matter as a prosecutor, and Johnson’s petition does not allege otherwise,” the office wrote. Assistant attorneys general argued Carr’s 2020 review “does not permit him to provide an opinion on the ultimate issue in this case” and was “outside the scope of duties.”

Marshall’s office called the review “unsanctioned” because it happened before Jefferson County formally opened a Conviction Review Unit in 2021.

But Johnson’s lawyers pointed out in their Monday filing that the original prosecutor in the case—former Jefferson County Deputy District Attorney Jeff Wallace—has also spoken out in support of a new trial.

The AG’s Office has also claimed Johnson’s case should be dismissed based on procedural issues. Johnson’s lawyers wrote Monday, “To be clear, the Attorney General’s procedural argument is that this Court should allow Johnson to be executed even if the foundation of the prosecution’s case has disintegrated over time, even if the totality of the evidence shows that the conviction is fundamentally unreliable, and even if Johnson would not be convicted if he were tried today. That argument is both wrong and remarkable.”

The lawyers call Marshall’s arguments a “chilling suggestion that the Court should allow Johnson’s execution to proceed ‘whether or not’ the underlying conclusions about his guilt are correct.”

“The Attorney General does not appear to dispute that a failure to entertain Johnson’s petition would result in a miscarriage of justice. Perhaps this is not surprising, because it is beyond dispute that the execution of an innocent person would constitute a miscarriage of justice,” Johnson’s lawyers wrote.

“The District Attorney’s Office has faithfully discharged its duties; it prosecuted a case that it believed in many years ago, and it alerted the Court when it determined, after an extensive review, that it likely made a terrible mistake.”

And Carr’s review “does not appear even to have sparked the curiosity of the Attorney General’s Office, let alone tempered the zeal with which it continues to defend Johnson’s conviction and death sentence.”

The AG’s Office blames Carr for the issue, Johnson’s lawyers wrote, instead of facing issues in the investigation. And their January comments were a “culmination of years of efforts to bury, ignore, and attack the conclusion of the District Attorney’s Office.”

Marshall’s office has asked Pickett to dismiss the case, writing in January that “no purpose would be served by any further proceedings.”

But Johnson’s lawyers disagree.

“The purpose of further proceedings is clear: to ensure that Alabama does not execute an innocent person based on a conviction that is fundamentally unreliable.”

Former Alabama Chief Justice Drayton Nabers and former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley have been among numerous lawyers, former judges and prosecutors who have voiced support for a new trial for Johnson. Other supporters include former U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, former magistrate Judge John Carroll, and three former jurors on the case.

Kim Kardashian and Richard Branson have also voiced their support for Johnson.

Several former jurors on the case have spoken out, including Monique Hicks who wrote an op-ed calling Johnson innocent.