Tennessee: DR inmate Cecil Johnson Jr. says 29-year delay is cruel and unusual

The man scheduled to be executed in Nashville on Wednesday morning has asked for a stay of execution, saying to kill him by lethal injection after 29 years on death row is cruel and unusual punishment.

Cecil Johnson Jr. was convicted in 1981 for a triple killing at Bob Bell's Market the previous year and was given 3 death sentences by a jury. It wasn't until 2008 that his legal options were exhausted and an execution

date was set.

His attorney, Jim Thomas, argued in the complaint filed in federal court Wednesday that the execution should be stayed in part because "the state's manipulations and conduct" have delayed the case.

Johnson, now 53, was 23 when he was given the death sentence. Gov. Phil Bredesen denied Johnson's plea for clemency this week.

Thomas said that all the delays were caused by courts that failed to rule on Johnson's case for up to three years at a time after hearing some of the arguments, and by the state's attorneys.

"Mr. Johnson has spent this time in mortal suspense, constantly waiting for that uncertain day on which he will be strapped to a chair or a gurney and killed a day that could arrive next week, next month, next year, but also maybe never," court filings said. "Being forced to persist in a state of constant apprehension of imminent death for nearly three decades amounts to torture."

One witness switched sides

18 years of the delay, according to Thomas, can be attributed to the fact the state concealed police reports that could have cast doubt on the identification of Johnson as the killer.

Victims and eyewitnesses testified in 1981 that it was Johnson who walked into Bob Bell's Market on July 5, 1980, and forced a 12-year-old boy to empty the cash register. Bobby Bell Jr. was working with his father that evening. Johnson then shot the boy in the head, wounded his father and a friend in the store, and gunned down James Moore and Charles House outside while they sat in a taxicab.

The state withheld initial reports in which 1 of 3 witnesses who identified Johnson said he hadn't gotten a good look at the gunman and failed to identify him in the first 2 lineups he was shown. He later identified Johnson after seeing him on television, arrested in the case.

A witness intending to testify on Johnson's behalf also became a state witness a week before the trial after he was interrogated and offered immunity by a prosecutor who was later indicted on bribery charges.

A panel of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Johnson's appeal in a 2-1 decision.

Source: The Tennessean, Nov. 28, 2009