Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr Sunday reiterated his belief that death row inmate Toforest Johnson deserves a new trial.

Speaking to more than 100 people at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Birmingham, Carr went through his concerns with the conviction of Johnson of the 1995 murder of Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy William Hardy, killed while working off-duty at a hotel.

Carr said in an interview after his talk that even if the court ordered a new trial, he wasn’t sure he could proceed with one.

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“If we could, but I don’t think we could because all the witnesses are deceased to be honest with you,” Carr said in an interview after the event about a future prosecution should the case be retried. “And with the evidence that we have, I don’t know if that is enough to go forward. We have to meet probable cause first. We don’t have an eyewitness. We don’t have any other evidence other than a person saying, ‘I heard someone say something on the phone.’”

Carr didn’t comment when asked he would retry the case, only that, “if that is all we have, we will have to wait and see.”

“Leadership isn’t about being right, it is about making things right,” Carr said to the more than 100 people who attended the event.

Johnson’s conviction has been questioned by Carr and others, mainly over the reliability of witnesses.

The Alabama Supreme Court last year rejected Johnson’s request for a new trial. Johnson in 2020 petitioned the Jefferson County Circuit Court for a new trial, citing the concerns Carr raised.

Johnson was convicted of Hardy’s murder in 1998. No physical evidence links him to the crime. Several people later said that Johnson and another man, Ardragus Ford, were at a bar at the time of the shooting, but these people did not testify.

Questions about Johnson’s conviction have centered in two witnesses. One, Yolanda Chambers, gave inconsistent accounts of what she saw that evening, and was called a “liar” by a prosecutor at a first trial of Johnson and Ford. But prosecutors put her on the stand as a key witness in the second trial in 1998, in which Ford was acquitted but Johnson convicted.

Another witness, Violet Ellison, claimed to overhear a person identifying himself as “Toforest” admit to murdering Hardy as part of a three-way telephone conversation. Ellison sought and was later paid a $5,000 reward for information in the case, a fact that was never disclosed to the defense.

“Ms. Ellison had never met Toforest Johnson, and she had never heard his voice,” the 2020 filing said.

The filing seeking a new Rule 32 hearing argues that the district attorney’s review of the case creates new material evidence that warrants a vacation of the conviction. The lead prosecutor in the case has also requested a new trial.

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office opposes a new hearing for Johnson, arguing that the issues Carr raises were already addressed by the court. According to the law, the court “shall not grant relief on a successive petition on the same or similar grounds on behalf of the same petitioner.”

“Indeed, these factors are successive grounds because they were previously raised in Johnson’s first Rule 32 proceeding,” wrote Jon Hayden, assistant attorney general, in a response to the petition last year.

Carr was one of several who spoke at the Faith Rally in support of Johnson and his effort to secure a new trial to secure his release. Moderator Beth Shelburne, who wrote and reported a podcast that she created about Johnson’s case took the audience through the circumstances surrounding Hardy’s death, along with the subsequent investigation that led to Johnson’s arrest and the problems that arose from the investigation and the following court proceedings.

Johnson’s family would weigh in during the different segments that were aired for the audience to hear.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am totally, totally for justice,” said Antonio Green, Johnson’s cousin. “Anyone who has committed a crime, especially of this magnitude, should be punished. But we should be sure we are punishing the person that committed the crime.”