Lorenzo Johnson was found guilty of first-degree murder in 1996 at the age of 22 and has spent 16 1/2 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. According to new evidence, Lorenzo was not even in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on the night of the murder of Tarajay Williams. He was 170 miles away, back home in New York when the murder occurred. Lorenzo was not even accused of participating in the shooting, only of allegedly being near the alley where the murder took place.
As a result of the lack of evidence presented in his original trial, the Federal Appeals Court for the Third Circuit overturned Johnson’s conviction and freed him in January 2012. Rather than respect the court’s decision and allow an innocent man who served almost 17 years in prison to live free, the Pennsylvania Attorney General appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A mere 148 days after gaining his freedom, on May 29, 2012, the United States Supreme Court, in a quick and shocking decision, without even requesting a full briefing and oral arguments, reinstated Lorenzo’s conviction and he was ordered to return to Pennsylvania to resume his sentence of life without parole.