For Lorenzo “Cat” Johnson, the last year spent in prison has been long and tortuous for it came after almost six months in freedom, at home with the woman and family he loves. It came after the Supreme Court, in a dismissive per curiam, unchallenged, unsigned opinion, reversed his order of freedom by the majority of a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. From the sweet bed of freedom, with his wife and family, to the cold brick walls and steel bunk of prison.
Now his lawyers have filed a new challenge in two courts simultaneously. Filing in state and federal courts, his lawyers had torn the state’s chief witness to shreds proving, with police affidavits, that the story she told, naming him from day one, was a concoction, a fabrication, a lie from the start, and every cop and prosecutor who worked on his case knew it from the day of his arrest. Indeed, by reinvestigating his case, the lawyers found not just a treasure trove of new and important witnesses, but startling evidence that strongly suggests that the state’s star witness, a notorious crack addict known throughout the drug world of Harrisburg as a fiend, may have lied because she may have played a part, a central role, in the murder of Tara J. Williams, a local small-time drug salesman.
In fact, Cat’s entire case is based on police intimidation and prosecutorial deals of witnesses; those who could have proved not only that he was innocent, but innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt. That’s because on the night Tara J. Williams was killed, Cat wasn’t in Harrisburg. He wasn’t even in Pennsylvania, but cops and prosecutors have the tools of intimidation in their hands: prison, and using such tools, they can twist witnesses like pretzels. They can literally make them say anything. And they did. But now the case is fast unraveling like toilet paper. Cat is back in court, stronger than ever. From in prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio
