No criminal justice system is perfect. However, America’s justice system seems to be perpetually getting worse. The system has been criticized for sometimes being unconstitutional, for overcriminalization of offenders- especially if they are black and for lack of proper accountability structures and procedures for police and prosecutors. These are reasons for the appeal to save Anthony Eugene Johnson. Anthony Eugene Johnson was born in Dallas, Texas in 1989. For the past thirteen years, he has been incarcerated based on charges of aggravated assault and manslaughter. The incident in question started as an altercation between two groups. According to the case reports, Anthony Eugene Johnson allegedly took out his gun and fired at the rival group several times as things got heated. This would unfortunately lead to two men being injured and one dying. As what was supposed to be a self defense case turned murder case.
In the case hearing, the head of gang intelligence in Texas, B.K. Nelson is alleged to have created a fraudulent file for Eugene. Nelson has also been caught putting fake documents in other people’s cases. Furthermore, Eugene’s appellants claim that the prosecutor threw out the original surveillance video and instead fabricated a different story with a witness who was never at the scene.
Furthermore, the goal of prison should be rehabilitation. However, Anthony Eugene Johnson has not had a chance to reform. Instead, he is fighting to survive in the system. Anthony was poisoned with rat poison before his trial in 2009 in Dallas County after rumors of prosecutors placing wagers on his case and a court official being related to one of the victims in his case came to surface. More recently he was critically injured while protecting a female officer from being assaulted. Lack of proper medical attention with several fractures in his hand caused a life threatening septic infection in his bloodstream. Anthony says, “Texas penitentiaries are modernized concentration camps. You are either brave and a bully, or you ball up. Happiness is haphazardness manifesting the satisfaction of liberation, creating love for yourself exactly how you’ve imagined it. If I can’t maintain my mind frame, how can I maintain the mind frames of others? I’m not the only one with a story to tell, I’m just one of the only ones inside the jungle of hell with the courage to expose it. In captivity, you don’t live like a beast, you become the beast.”
Despite everything that has happened to him, Anthony is still trying to maintain strength and hope. He wants to be the opposite of what the system is trying to force him to be: “Every person has a whole lot of heart, but when it’s ripped out of your chest, it’s just a whole lot of broken parts that the streets and injustices never understood. Between 2008 and 2022, when I received my murder charges, I’ve done 13 years and 4 months of incarceration. Of that 13, I’ve done 9 years of it on a supermax in segregation 24-hour lockdown. Before I was turned into stock and applied like cattle, I was someone’s son, grandson, father, brother, and nephew. Then I became stronger, more intelligent, more resilient, more of me. I became the opposite of what this institution was designed to exploit and destroy me. You can’t break something that life has already broken. Those cracks just turn into shark teeth.” Anyone interested in justice for Anthony Eugene Johnson can read more about the case and sign the petition here down below:
