Acquitted after 29 years, man files civil rights suit
ATLANTA — A Georgia man says he was frightened into pleading guilty for a murder he didn’t commit after police dangled him off a bridge three decades ago, brought charges against his parents and threatened him with the death penalty.
Timothy R. Johnson was 22 in September 1984 when police arrested him and charged him in the killing of a Warner Robins convenience store clerk shot during a robbery. He pleaded guilty in December of that year — even though he says he didn’t commit the crime. He was sentenced to life in prison.
In 2006, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned Johnson’s conviction, saying there was nothing to indicate he understood his right not to incriminate himself and his right to confront witnesses.
It took seven more years before he was finally tried and was able to make his case before a jury, which found him not guilty on all charges.
He filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Monday alleging Warner Robins police officers and Houston County sheriff ’s deputies arrested him without probable cause and participated in malicious prosecution against him. During his 29 years at Georgia State Prison and in the Houston County jail, he was placed in a cramped, windowless cell in solitary confinement for at least part of the time and was given little access to exercise or interaction with other people, the lawsuit says.
At the state prison, he suffered beatings once or twice a week by a group of guards known as the “goon squad,” the lawsuit says.
“It was like being in a bad dream, except you know you’re not dreaming,” Johnson said.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said she could not comment on the alleged conduct.
Johnson says he had been at a friend’s house with six or seven other people at the time of Taressa Stanley’s killing, but his court-appointed attorney didn’t investigate his alibi. He was later told that an initial suspect, a high school classmate he hadn’t seen in several years, had identified him as the shooter.