Johnson v. Martin, No. 19-5091 (10th Cir. 2021)
Annotate this CaseAn Oklahoma jury convicted Alonzo Johnson of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. After unsuccessfully challenging his convictions in state court, Johnson petitioned for federal habeas relief. Relevant here, he asserted that the prosecution exercised its peremptory strikes in a racially discriminatory manner to exclude minorities from the jury, in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights. Johnson also asserted, in relevant part, that gruesome evidence, juror misconduct, and cumulative error rendered his trial fundamentally unfair. The district court denied relief. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the denial of relief on Johnson’s gruesome-evidence, juror-misconduct, and cumulative-error claims. But because the Court concluded that the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) relied on an unreasonable factual determination and unreasonably applied Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) to reject Johnson’s claim, and further determined that Johnson raised a prima facie case of discrimination under the first step of Batson. The Court therefore reversed the district court’s denial of habeas relief on Johnson’s Batson claim and remanded for further proceedings.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.