- Lamar Johnson, 49, had a solid alibi when his friend, Markus Boyd, was shot dead by two masked men in 1994. However, he still spent 28 years behind bars for the crime
- The new lawsuit alleges that the St. Louisa forced a witness to point the finger at Johnson for the murder
- Released from prison in 2023, Johnson is now suing St. Louis and the police officers who allegedly framed him for criminal and monetary damages
A Missouri man freed after spending nearly three decades in prison has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of St. Louis and eight police officers whom he claims framed him for a murder he did not commit.
A wrongful conviction lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on behalf of Lamar Johnson, 50, who spent 28 years in prison for the 1994 killing of his friend Markus Boyd.
On October 30, 1994, Johnson, then 20, was miles away with his girlfriend when two masked men shot Boyd as he sat on his porch in St. Louis, his attorneys at the national civil rights firm Neufeld, Sheck, Brustin, Hoffman & Freudenberger said in a statement.
“But the police forced an eyewitness into a fake ID and fabricated evidence from a racist and unreliable jailhouse informant, and failed to interview numerous people who could testify to Johnson’s whereabouts, obtain a unique search warrant, or investigate other obvious evidence of his innocence, Emma Fruedenberger, partner at NSBHF, said in a statement.
Johnson and another man, Phillip Campbell, now deceased, were convicted of murdering Marcus Boyd over an alleged drug debt and sentenced to life in prison. However, Johnson was freed in 2023 after a judge found he was wrongly convicted, the Associated Press reported.
Now Johnson is seeking a fine and an undisclosed amount of monetary damages as retribution for the 28 years he lost.
“I am grateful to be free and I am doing my best to make up for all the time that was stolen from me and my family, especially my daughters,” Johnson said in a statement. “I want to put this dark and painful chapter behind me, but there is no healing without answers and responsibility. I deserved better, and so did Markus. I intend to make sure this does not happen to anyone else.”
His lawyers also agree with this. “This lawsuit is about liability,” NSBHF partner Emma Freudenberger said in a statement.
“The defendant police officers placed a young man whose life is in front of him. Even after the court declared his innocence, there were no apologies or consequences,” the statement continued. “The city of St. Louis cannot continue to simply ignore the blatant police misconduct that has caused so much harm to Mr. Johnson and his family.”
Mo. Man seeks acquittal of murder charges in 1994, two more people confess, witness claims police acted inappropriately
Johnson, a father of two who worked at Jiffy Lube while taking classes at a community college, admitted to selling small amounts of the drug, CBS News reported. But he maintained his innocence from the beginning.
Determined to clear his name and be released from prison, he sought help from the Midwest Innocence Project. They worked with then-District Attorney Kim Garner to investigate the murder, AP reports.
In August 2022, Gardner filed a motion asking a judge to overturn Johnson’s conviction, according to the AP.
At the hearing in December 2022 at the District Court of St. Louis, a man named James Howard allegedly confessed to Boyd’s murder, saying he and Campbell killed Boyd and that Johnson had nothing to do with it, according to St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Howard said he and Campbell killed Boyd because he “disrespected Howard’s partner, Sirone Spates, aka Puffy.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
Evidence was also presented showing that Greg Elking, the star witness in Johnson’s trial, which began in 1995, may have been pressured or coerced into identifying Johnson as a suspect. Elking told the court that when authorities questioned him after the murder, he was forced to name Johnson.
“The same evidence that proved Lamar Johnson’s innocence in District Court in 2023 was available at his criminal trial nearly thirty years ago,” said attorney Lindsay Runnels of Morgan Pilate LLC. She was an intern at the Midwest Innocence Project when Johnson first approached the organization and helped get him freed.
“But it was hidden and ignored by those who saw no value in the lives of two young black men from the South Side,” she said. “It is time for the City of St. Louis to come to terms with the harm it has caused to Lamar Johnson and so many others.”
The lawsuit, the lawyers said in a statement, “seeks unspecified compensatory damages for the violation of Mr. Johnson’s constitutional rights and for the years of pain and loss he suffered behind bars.”
Metropolitan police officers of St. Louisa Joseph Nickerson, Clyde Bailey, Ronald Jackson, Gary Stittum, Jeffrey Crawford, Robert Oldani and Joseph Burgoon, as well as the estate of the late Officer Ralph Campbell, are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Police St. Louisa declined to comment.
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