Life-And-Death Testimony Doubted

Was The Late Malcolm Johnson An Innocent Man?

(CBS)  The charges are stunning. Did an Oklahoma chemist lie on the witness stand and send a man to his death?

"For 20 years I've questioned what Joyce Gilchrist testified to at trial," said defense attorney Bob Rivitz.

Last year, Rivitz's client Malcolm Johnson, who had served time for two previous rapes, was executed for the 1981 rape and murder of an elderly woman. Gilchrist's testimony – that she found semen matching the accused's blood type at the crime scene – was the key part of the prosecution.

But CBS News has obtained an internal memo from the Oklahoma City Police Department that says the evidence never existed, reports Correspondent Maureen Maher.

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Click here to read the internal memo (.pdf format).

The bodily fluid "…is not present on (the) slides…," the memo reads. It goes on to request "a complete review of the …evidence" in the case.

Ura Alma Thompson, 76, was found suffocated in her apartment on Oct. 27, 1981. There were no witnesses to the crime, and no fingerprints matching Johnson's were found. He was arrested after officers went to his home to question him about an unrelated parole violation and noticed items belonging to the victim. A search led to the discovery of her apartment key in his nightstand. He contended all the items were given to him by a third party.

"…Even as he was being lead to the execution chamber - he denied committing the crime…" said Rivitz of his client.

In seeking the death penalty, prosecutors cited Johnson's two previous convictions for rape in Chicago and the "heinous" nature of the rape and murder, and said he posed a danger to the community.

Attorney Garvin Isaacs, who has represented several defendants Gilchrist testified against, said any one of the aggravating circumstances in Johnson's case could have resulted in the sentence, regardless of the previous rape convictions.

"It's Oklahoma," he said.

According to a recent survey by Amnesty International, Oklahoma has more executions per capita than any state.

DNA testing has already set another man free who went to jail on Gilchrist's testimony. Last spring, Jeffrey Todd Pierce was released fifteen years after her testimony linked him to a rape he did not commit. Two appellate couts have also ruled Gilchrist gave false testimony about semen evidence in the 1992 rape and murder trial of Alfred Brian Mitchell, whose death sentence was overturned earlier this month because of what one court called her "untrue" testimony.

Gilchrist isn't commenting on the memo, but she told CBS News "using technology that we had at the time, I did the best job I could."

DNA analysis was not available at that time, and the court denied the defense's request for funds to hire its own forensics expert. Johnson's attorney argued during trial that blue cotton shirts were so ubiquitious that the fiber could not definitively be linked to Johnson.

Gilchrist remains on paid suspension with the FBI and the Oklahoma attorney general go over the case. But no matter what the outcome, for Malcolm Johnson it is too late.