Biography
Black St. Louis man facing a life term for the murder of a policeman during a 1970 robbery, in a case his supporters and attorney William Kunstler called a frame-up built on suppressed evidence; The Black Panther Vol. 15 no.8 (1976) reports the National Committee To Free J.B. Johnson.
The September 24, 1976 Militant reports that Johnson was sentenced to life on September 10, 1976, with Judge William Corrigan denying probation while Johnson continued to maintain his innocence. His attorneys supplied forty-five individual endorsements for probation, including representatives of the Missouri NAACP, Missouri Black Caucus and Coalition of Black Social Workers. An appeal was planned; this report dates the 1976 retrial sentencing, not a fresh arrest. Source: https://themilitant.com/1976/4036/MIL4036.pdf#page=2
Following the Missouri Supreme Court’s reversal of his 1972 conviction in July 1975, Johnson was retried and sentenced to life in May 1976. His supporters challenged the all-white jury and maintained that the prosecution’s evidence was contradictory.
New American Movement, volume V number 11, July–August 1976, PDF page 6.
A contemporary report of a May 22, 1976 rally in St. Louis states that Johnson had been sent to prison for the second time in the preceding week. His mother, Mary Watkins, attended the rally in support of his defense. The report describes the murder prosecution as a frame-up but does not give the exact readmission day or the date his earlier confinement ended.
The Militant, volume 40 number 23, June 11, 1976, PDF page 7.
In February 1976, the newspaper reported that Judge George Cloyd disqualified himself from the retrial and that the case was assigned to Judge Corrigan. Prosecutor Courtney Goodman opposed delaying the proceeding until William Kunstler was available. The scheduled February 17 trial date was an announcement, separate from the later trial that actually occurred.
The Militant, February 20, 1976, volume40 number7, PDF page 2.
