The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the conviction of Alabama death row inmate Toforest Johnson, whose appeal was based on a reward paid to a key witness for the prosecution.

Johnson’s case was on a list released Monday of cases for which the Supreme Court denied certiorari, or review. There was no opinion issued.

Johnson was convicted of the 1995 murder of Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy William Hardy.

Johnson’s lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court in April. In June, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall responded, urging the justices to reject the request for a review of the case.

The state argued that Johnson’s attorneys had not proven their assertion that the key witness in the 1998 murder conviction testified in hopes of receiving a $5,000 reward from the governor. Marshall’s office said there was no evidence that the witness, Violet Ellison, knew about or hoped to get the reward when she took the stand.

“Of course, payment of the reward could not have been mentioned at Johnson’s trial in 1998 because the prosecutor did not apply for the reward until three years after the trial,” said the state’s filing.

Marshall’s office also said the case “does not raise an issue of extraordinary public importance or any compelling circumstances.”

Johnson’s attorneys said in their appeal that the state concealed the reward payment for 18 years.

“The public cannot possibly have confidence in the system if the state of Alabama is permitted to execute Johnson when it paid its key witness $5,000 in secret and both the District Attorney and the trial prosecutor support a new trial,” Johnson’s lawyers wrote.

Ellison told police she heard a man who identified himself as Toforest confess to the shooting. She didn’t know Johnson, and said she overheard the remark when she picked up the phone during a call her daughter made to a friend who was in jail.

Johnson’s case had reached the Supreme Court before. In 2017, the justices ruled in favor of Johnson and sent the case back to the state.

The appeal then moved through the state court system for years. The Alabama Supreme Court declined to review Johnson’s conviction in December 2022.

In 2020, Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr voiced concerns about Johnson’s case and asked for a new trial. He wrote in a court filing, “It is the District Attorney’s position that in the interest of justice, Mr. Johnson who has spent more than two decades on Death Row, be granted a new trial.”

The original prosecutor also supported Carr’s motion.

Former Alabama Chief Justice Drayton Nabers and former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley were among numerous lawyers, former judges and prosecutors who have voiced support 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.