Charges against Salem man for 1998 murder dropped

After 25 years in prison, a Salem man once convicted of murder and placed on death row walked free Tuesday, the murder charge for the death of a local woman now dismissed.

Jesse Lee Johnson, now 62, was sentenced to death for the murder of Harriet Lavern "Sunny" Thompson, 28, in her apartment on 12th Street SE in Salem in 1998.

Johnson, who is Black, has maintained his innocence for more than 20 years and has made multiple attempts to prove it.

His case was sent back to Marion County Circuit Court in 2021 after the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed his conviction, putting it back in the hands of county prosecutors to determine whether to retry the case.

The Oregon Court of Appeals judge found that during Johnson's trial, his attorneys to investigate evidence that could have changed the outcome.

Specifically, Johnson's lawyers failed to include testimony from Thompson's neighbor who witnessed another man run out of Thompson's house on the night of her murder. The post-conviction court, which initially denied Johnson's motion for post-conviction relief, should have determined that the lawyers' deficient performance could have affected the outcome of Johnson's case, presiding Court of Appeals Judge Rex Armstrong said.

"Today’s opinion is a long-overdue step toward righting a terrible injustice," Johnson's lawyer, Ryan O'Connor, of O'Connor Weber LLC law firm in Portland, said in a statement in 2021. "The evidence in this case shows that racism and police misconduct played a significant role in Mr. Johnson’s wrongful conviction in 2004."

The Marion County District Attorney's Office initially filed new charges against Johnson. But on Tuesday, deputy district attorneys Katie Suver and Matthew Kemmy filed a motion to dismiss without prejudice.

In the motion, they said while preparing for a new trial, they determined certain evidence was unavailable and many critical witnesses are now dead.

"Based on the amount of time passed and the unavailability of critical evidence in this case, the state no longer believes that it can prove the defendant's guilt to 12 jurors beyond a reasonable doubt," Suver and Kemmy said in the motion. "Thus, in the interests of justice, the state must move for dismissal of this case."

The 1998 murder of Harriet Thompson

Thompson’s landlord discovered her lifeless body on March 20, 1998, in her apartment on 12th Street SE, just south of Morningside Elementary School.

Salem Police determined she died from multiple stab wounds. Her throat had been slashed and her hands were covered in defensive wounds from trying to fight back.

Her couch was soaked in blood, and specks of blood dotted the apartment's linoleum floor.

Investigators later learned Thompson, a nursing aide and mother of five, had slowly bled to death.

The Marion County deputy district attorney at the time, Darin Tweedt, described the aftermath of the brutal crime as being like "a scene from a slaughterhouse."

Johnson, who was arrested a week later, acknowledged he knew Thompson, but denied killing her or ever going to her apartment.

Tweedt said the residence was ransacked and stated the motive was robbery. He said Thompson’s stolen jewelry was traded for drugs and some pieces were found at Johnson’s girlfriend’s home.

The case was a drawn-out affair, taking six years from Thompson's death to Johnson's conviction.

Johnson maintained his innocence throughout the investigation. Before his 2004 trial, he declined the state’s plea offer for first-degree manslaughter and first-degree robbery.

Jurors took six hours over the course of two days to come to a unanimous verdict on March 18, 2004: Johnson was guilty of aggravated murder in Thompson’s stabbing death.

Although he declined to testify during the trial, Johnson stood and spoke during his sentencing hearing.

"I'm innocent of this crime," he said. "I didn't kill Harriet."

Johnson was sentenced to death.

Multiple attempts have been made to prove Johnson's innocence.

In 2016, for example, lawyers Steve Wax and Brittney Plesser from the Oregon Innocence Project filed a motion in Marion County to request the DNA testing and re-testing of at least 38 pieces of physical evidence in the case against Johnson.

Several pieces of DNA evidence were recovered at Thompson’s home. Some, including a cigarette butt, a bottle of liquor and a dollar bill, matched Johnson’s DNA.

Officers collected a bloody sweater, two bloody towels and a broken knife from Thompson’s bathroom. A serrated steak knife was found in the toilet.

Several key items recovered from the scene did not match Johnson’s DNA.

A semen sample taken from a vaginal swab of the victim, a spot of blood by the bathroom sink, blood on the bathroom floor and hairs found on the victim were not a match to Johnson.

After an unsuccessful appeal, Johnson filed for post-conviction relief in 2008.

The arguments, which were rejected by the post-conviction court, were subsequently appealed by Johnson.

In one of his arguments, Johnson claimed he was denied the right to adequate and effective counsel because of his lawyer's failure to interview Thomspon's neighbor, Patricia Hubbard.

Hubbard, who lived across the street and two houses down from Thompson, was sitting on her porch the night Thompson was murdered, she said in a deposition taken in 2013 on the post-conviction case.

Hubbard said she saw a white man drive up and park his van in the victim's driveway, adding she'd noticed the man come to Thompson's house many times before. Within seconds, she heard shouting and screaming coming from inside the home, as well as what sounded like pots and pans crashing inside.

She heard screaming, followed by a thud and then silence.

The man, Hubbard said, came out the back door and took off running.

Ten to 15 minutes later, she saw a Black man walking down the driveway, though she couldn't say whether he'd come from inside the house. When Johnson's post-conviction attorneys showed Hubbard his photograph approximately 12 years after the murder, Hubbard said that he did not look like the person she had seen that night.

One day after the murder, Hubbard approached a Salem police officer to explain what she witnessed, but the officer told her he didn't need her help. She tried to tell police what she saw on another occasion but was told her statement wouldn't be necessary, according to the deposition.

She also recounted the detective saying: "A n***** got murdered, and a n*****'s going to pay for it."

Hubbard said she would have testified what she witnessed at trial.

The defense in the appeals case said the six hours defense investigators spent canvassing Thompson's neighborhood was enough and that initial police reports showed no one at Hubbard's address had any useful information.

Johnson's lawyers argued any "reasonable" defense attorney would've known how important it was to interview the residents surrounding Thompson's home and that it was unreasonable to stop canvassing after only six hours.

At the time, the post-conviction court agreed the counsel "failed to use a reasonable skill" by not interviewing Hubbard, but concluded Johnson wasn't prejudiced by their "deficient" performance.

The court stated the trial produced evidence that coincided with what Hubbard would have testified and that there was a long period of time between the killing and her interview.

In his opinion in 2021, Armstrong disagreed with the post-conviction court's decision.

He said having determined that Johnson's lawyers failed to interview a witness, the post-conviction court should also have determined that the lawyers' deficient performance prejudiced Johnson — and that he should have been granted relief on that basis.

"A reasonable investigation would likely have led to finding and interviewing Hubbard, which in turn would have led to evidence and testimony that could have tended to affect the outcome of the trial," Armstrong wrote.

It seems unclear whether any final answers will be found in the case.

"Throughout the duration of this case, despite ongoing investigation, no other suspect has been identified in Harriet Thompson's murder," prosecutors said in the dismissal.

In its motion for dismissal, the Marion County District Attorney's Office requested the case be dismissed without prejudice, meaning if new evidence is discovered or becomes available, the state would be allowed to present the case to a grand jury.

Judge Tracy Prall allowed the motion for dismissal on Tuesday, and Johnson walked free out of Marion County jail.

“I’m happy and excited and ready for the next phase now," he told Oregon Public Broadcasting. "Been a lot of years for something I didn’t do."

For questions, comments and news tips, email reporter Whitney Woodworth at wmwoodworth@statesmanjournal.com, call 503-910-6616 or follow on Twitter at @wmwoodworth

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Charges against Salem man for 1998 murder dropped