New podcast "Hush" explores Jesse Johnson's fight for freedom
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"Hush" dives into an Oregon death row case. Illustration: Courtesy of Dana Rierson/OPB
A new investigative podcast dives into the case of Jesse Johnson, a Black man who is now free but spent 25 years in an Oregon prison — 17 on death row — for a murder he maintains he didn't commit.
Why it matters: The nine-part series asserts that unreliable witnesses, thin evidence and allegations of police misconduct plagued the criminal proceedings against Johnson.
- It also illustrates the contradiction of Oregon's self-image as a progressive pioneer and the realities of inequity in its institutions, according to journalist Leah Sottile, co-host of OPB's "Hush"podcast, which premiers Wednesday.
Flashback: In 1998, a 38-year-old Johnson was arrested and charged with the murder of 28-year-old Harriet Thompson, who was found dead in her Salem apartment from stab wounds.
- Johnson sat in jail for six years until he was convicted and sentenced to death in 2004, when prosecutors "built the case around the fact that he was in possession of Thompson's jewelry, so that meant that he killed her," Sottile said.
- Police officers failed to interview Thompson's neighbor, who said she saw a white man fleeing the scene after a heated altercation with Thompson, who was Black.
- In 2014, the Oregon Innocence Project picked up Johnson's case over questions regarding the use of DNA evidence linked to him — a cigarette butt and an imprint of his boots.
The latest: Johnson lived on death row at the Oregon State Penitentiary until 2021, when the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the conviction and a new trial was granted.
- Yes, but: In September 2023, two weeks before the new trial, Marion County prosecutors dismissed Johnson's first-degree murder charge without prejudice — allowing him to walk free.
- He now lives back in Arkansas and is considering suing the state for wrongful incarceration, per Sottile.
The other side: "The state's inability to prove a 26-year-old murder after a reversal does not mean Jesse Johnson is innocent," Brendan Murphy, a deputy district attorney for Marion County, said in an email statement.
Zoom in: "Hush" examines the murder case and court proceedings, as well as Johnson's background — born with fetal alcohol syndrome to teenage parents in Arkansas subsidized housing, then drifted west as a young adult, landing in Oregon.
- Johnson and Thompson knew each other, and both were drug users in Salem, which played a big role in the case, Sottile said. Many of the state's witnesses were drug users, too.
- Sottile and co-host Ryan Haas detail how police didn't record interviews and collected evidence without a warrant. They also highlight a statement from a witness accusing a detective of using a racial slur to describe Johnson.
What they're saying: "This case proves that a lot of Oregon's so-called progressive nature and attitudes is not backed up by facts, and it's still a place that deeply struggles with its racist foundation," Sottile said.
Where to listen: Anywhere you get your podcasts. Two episodes drop weekly.