Johnny Ray Johnson was convicted of the capital murder of Leah Joette Smith, who was 41 and died in Houston, Texas, in 1995. A Harris County jury sentenced him to death. Other deaths were attributed to him but never led to a conviction. Johnson was executed in Huntsville on February 12, 2009, at the age of 51.
Johnson was 51 when he died, which places his birth in about 1957. In 1983 he was convicted of sexual assault in Travis County, where Austin is the county seat, and was sentenced to five years. He was released on mandatory supervision less than two years later. He later received a second five-year sentence for another offense and was released after about ten months.
Leah Joette Smith was 41 and lived in Houston. She died there in 1995.
Johnson was charged with capital murder in Harris County and tried there before a jury. He denied involvement in Smith's death. The jury convicted him of capital murder and sentenced him to death. The sentence was handed down more than a dozen years before his execution.
A federal appeals court upheld the conviction and the death sentence in 2007. In December 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case. On February 12, 2009, the day of the execution, the Supreme Court denied an application for a stay of execution and denied a petition for a writ of certiorari in Johnson v. Texas, No. 08-8653.
Johnson was executed in Huntsville, Texas, on Thursday, February 12, 2009. He was 51.
Texas law at the time allowed prisoners to be released before the end of a sentence under mandatory supervision. Johnson's 1983 sentence of five years ended in release in under two years, and his second five-year sentence ended in release after about ten months. Both releases came before the 1995 deaths.
Johnson denied responsibility for Smith's death and said his confessions were coerced. Court filings attributed to him at least five deaths in Houston and Austin, Smith's among them; during the investigation he led Houston police to information about two other deaths and described one more that could not be confirmed. None of these led to a conviction.
1983: convicted of sexual assault in Travis County; sentenced to five years.
1995: Leah Joette Smith dies in Houston.
About 1996: Johnson sentenced to death by a Harris County jury (the exact year is not on record).
2007: a federal appeals court upholds the conviction and sentence.
December 2007: the U.S. Supreme Court declines to review the case.
February 12, 2009: stay and certiorari denied; Johnson executed in Huntsville.