Amicus Brief: Lawrence Keith Johnson
Lawrence Keith Johnson v. the State of Florida
Filing Date
August 20, 2024
Charge
Murder, Burglary
Jurisdiction
District Court of Appeal of Florida Fourth District
Partners
Innocence Network
Summary
CIFS and the Innocence Network filed this amicus brief in the District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District in Lawrence Keith Johnson’s case to ask the court to reverse the trial court’s summary denial of the Rule 3.850 motion for post-conviction relief or remand Mr. Johnson’s case to the trial court and order an evidentiary hearing.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
This case is a poster child for how unreliable DNA evidence can mislead a jury and result in wrongful conviction. Here, DNA evidence—confirmed to be scientifically flawed—is responsible for Mr. Lawrence Johnson’s erroneous life sentence. The Court should scrutinize the decision below, which disregards the impact of defective forensic evidence that jurors nevertheless see as fool-proof, and provide Mr. Johnson a fair opportunity to litigate his defense. At minimum, the Court should grant Mr. Johnson’s request for an evidentiary hearing. There is unquestionably “good cause” for Mr. Johnson to discover the differences between the faulty DNA testing protocol which provided a purported “match” resulting in Mr. Johnson’s conviction and the same lab’s post-conviction DNA analysis concluding that it is “inconclusive” whether the evidence relied on by the jury is actually Mr. Johnson’s DNA.