Johnson v. State
| Decision Date | 19 April 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. CR-17-312,CR-17-312 |
| Citation | 2017 Ark. 138 |
| Parties | STACEY EUGENE JOHNSON APPELLANT/PETITIONER v. STATE OF ARKANSAS APPELLEE/RESPONDENT |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
The General Assembly, elected by the voters in the State of Arkansas, passed a statutory scheme that provides for the death penalty as an appropriate sentence for certain crimes. Justices of this court have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the State of Arkansas without regard to their personal views. This means the court sometimes makes exceedingly difficult decisions without personal consideration to ourselves. Simply put, we follow the law.
The majority of this court has again summarily issued an order in a death penalty case without providing any explanation for its decision. It has granted a stay and remanded for a second hearing on Stacey Johnson's motion for postconviction DNA testing pursuant to Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-112-201 et seq. (Repl. 2016). It does this despite the fact that the circuit court already held a telephonic hearing, made findings, and correctly found the defendant failed to meet the requirements of § 16-112-201 et seq.
The majority errs for three reasons: (1) Stacey Johnson failed to show that this testing might prove his actual innocence, (2) his motion is untimely, and (3) he failed to sufficiently plead chain of custody.
Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-112-201 permits a defendant to request relief when "scientific evidence not available at trial establishes the petitioner's actual innocence." Id. The statute also requires that the motion be timely, and the defendant has the burden of showing the evidence has not been tainted. Id.
First, Stacey Johnson has failed to make any showing that subsequent testing would result in proving his actual innocence. Indeed, Johnson has already made a virtually identical argument to this court, which we unanimously rejected. Johnson v. State, 356 Ark. 534, 157 S.W.3d 151 (2004). In rejecting his argument then we stated, "we do not believe . . . that testing should be authorized regardless of the slight chance it may yield a favorable result." Id. at 536, 157 S.W.3d at 161. Now, on the eve of his execution, the majority provides Johnson with relief. In addition, we must be mindful of the evidence which supported Johnson's conviction, particularly the DNA evidence which linked Stacey Johnson to this murder, the testimony of the victim's daughter identifying him as her killer, and Stacey Johnson's statements to law-enforcement officers that he had murdered a woman in Arkansas. The contention that the DNA of Carol Jean Heath's boyfriend might appear in her home is expected and does not equate to Stacey Johnson being innocent. Stacey Johnson was found guilty by two different juries for the April 1, 1993 murder of twenty-five-year-old Carol Jean...
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Johnson v. State
...the execution and remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing on the motion for postconviction DNA testing. See Johnson v. State , 2017 Ark. 138, 2017 WL 1455044 ( Johnson V ).At the hearing, Johnson offered evidence on three testing methodologies: touch DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and Y-STR D......