Toforest Johnson, an Alabama death row inmate, will no longer face execution after the state’s Republican governor commuted his sentence amid increasing doubts about his conviction.

Kay Ivey, the Alabama governor, commuted Johnson’s sentence to life in prison without parole in the 1995 murder of William Hardy, a Jefferson county deputy sheriff. Johnson has long maintained he is innocent, and several former public officials, as well the local district attorney, have argued he should receive a new trial.

“When presented with Mr Johnson’s case, I had concerns there was not enough direct evidence to carry out the most serious punishment – death,” Ivey said in a statement. “My decision is not a determination of innocence, but a recognition that the circumstances of this case justify commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment, without possibility of parole.”

Ivey has overseen 27 executions during her time as governor, and commuted the death sentence of three death row inmates. Her decision on Tuesday comes shortly after another Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, cancelled a planned execution for the first time earlier this month.

Ty Alper, one of Johnson’s attorneys, said they are grateful to Ivey for “diligently reviewing Toforest’s case and taking action to spare an innocent man from execution”. Alper said the fight to overturn the conviction will continue. The governor only has the power to commute a death sentence in such cases.

“Toforest Johnson is innocent. Now it is up to the courts to overturn his conviction and grant him a new trial. We will keep fighting until he is home with his family,” Alper said.

Johnson was sentenced to death in 1998.

Hardy was shot twice in the head while working off-duty security at a hotel in 1995. Johnson has maintained he was on the other side of town at the time of the shooting. No physical evidence tied him to the killing, and more than 10 witnesses placed him on the other side of town during the killing.

Danny Carr, the Jefferson county district attorney, has called for the conviction to be overturned, as has the original prosecutor. Carr has said that “the foundation of this conviction has disintegrated” and that there are multiple reasons to doubt the key prosecution witness.

The witness at Johnson’s 1998 trial testified that, while eavesdropping on a phone call, she heard a man she believed was Johnson admitting to the crime. She was paid $5,000 in 2001 for her testimony, and Johnson’s lawyers argue that the state withheld evidence of monetary motivation for the testimony.

There has been a years-long legal effort to win a new trial in the case that has garnered national attention, including support from Kim Kardashian, and was the subject of a podcast. Carr wrote in a 2024 court filing that the “evidence in this case has unraveled over 20 years”.

Former judges and prosecutors have joined the effort seeking a new trial for Johnson. Bill Baxley, a former Alabama attorney general, former state chief justices Sonny Hornsby and Drayton Nabers, and several former judges and prosecutors have submitted briefs or written editorials supporting a new trial.

The Associated Press contributed reporting