Alabama governor commutes sentence of prisoner on death row

Toforest Johnson’s death penalty reduced to life in prison without parole over doubts about his conviction

Toforest Johnson, an Alabama death row inmate, will no longer face execution after the state’s Republican governor commuted his sentence amid increasing doubts about his conviction.

Kay Ivey, the Alabama governor, commuted Johnson’s sentence to life in prison without parole in the 1995 murder of William Hardy, a Jefferson county deputy sheriff. Johnson has long maintained he is innocent, and several former public officials, as well the local district attorney, have argued he should receive a new trial.