Judge refuses to stop Johnson execution

By Lucas L. Johnson II Associated Press Writer NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) § A federal judge refused Monday to stop the execution of a man sentenced for a triple murder during a Nashville robbery. U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Echols heard arguments in the case of 53-year-old Cecil C. Johnson Jr., who was sentenced to death in 1981 and is set to be executed by lethal injection early Wednesday. Echols wrote in a ruling later that he lacks jurisdiction to halt the execution. Johnson's attorneys argued that evidence was withheld in the case and that the amount of time he's spent on death row waiting for his case to be reviewed has amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment." Lead attorney Jim Thomas said "feelings of uncertainty" have affected Johnson psychologically. But prosecutor Jennifer Smith said it was "a last minute tactic." "I'm sure every inmate (on death row) ... is traumatized by that particular state," Smith said. Echols acknowledged that Johnson's case has been in the judicial system a long time and that such cases have a tendency to undermine the confidence of the public in the courts. "I have not seen one this long," the judge said from the bench. "But when someone's life is at stake, you don't want to give up hope." In his ruling, Echols ordered filings in the case transferred to 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. Johnson is accused of walking into Bob Bell's Nashville convenience store July 5, 1980, near closing time and fatally shooting the shop owner's son, Bobby Bell, and two men sitting in a taxi § Charles House, 35, and James Moore, 41, the driver. The elder Bell and another man in the market were wounded. Johnson, who was a kitchen worker at Vanderbilt Hospital, was after two days when his father turned him in. Johnson was convicted six months later, with the elder Bell identifying Johnson during the trial. If he's executed, Johnson will be the sixth person put to death in Tennessee since 2000. There were no executions between 1961 and 2000. Tennessee Corrections spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said Johnson has been moved to death watch, where he's in a cell next to the execution chamber with a telephone and TV. She said he has refused a final meal.

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