Lorenzo Johnson
For many formerly incarcerated individuals, it can feel like the entire system is stacked against success and freedom. When this is the case, it is easy to give up and much harder to keep fighting back. It takes a person unwilling to bend to the system in order to force the system to bend to the person.
Lorenzo Johnson, unyielding in his conviction of his innocence and unwilling to succumb to the fate the criminal justice system laid out for him, fought for his freedom. The 47-year-old New Yorker returned from prison in 2017 after being falsely accused of his crime. He was given a natural life sentence at the age of 20, meaning he had no chance for parole hearings or possibility of release. Without an actual exoneration, Johnson would have died behind bars.
Now, Johnson is an entrepreneur, with his own clothing line called LoZo Couture, but it took him a long journey to get there.
Johnson was living with his girlfriend in New York and had two children when he was taken to jail in Pennsylvania, effectively pulling his family apart. Johnson served time in eight different prisons while incarcerated, being moved incredibly far away from his children. What kept him going during this hardship was thinking about his children, his family, and the knowledge that he was not supposed to be there.
This gave Johnson a drive while in prison, encouraging him to keep fighting in order to prove his innocence. While in prison, Johnson earned his GED as well as college credits, and he taught himself law. He ended up representing himself in court for six years. He did not have the luxury of “sitting back” in prison because he was fighting for his life, and everything he did while in prison was with the goal of one day getting out.
Johnson labored over law texts and spent sleepless nights pouring over books, typing and researching in order to form a defense. He never rested while in prison, knowing he was meant to be outside.
“I'm like a Frankenstein, I came back to haunt them,” Johnson said. “They made me because I had to get education, everything. [They] forced me to do everything I had to do. And I guess they didn't think that I was going to come back the way I came back.”
Finally, Johnson was released from prison in 2012, but he only remained free for 140 days. His case was heard by the Supreme Court, and they ruled to reinstate his natural life sentence.
“I lived in my worst nightmare, because I had to go back for five years to prove my innocence again,” Johnson said.
When Johnson returned to prison, he was put in solitary confinement for a month. Afterwards, his legal team held a meeting where they turned over paperwork that had been withheld from Johnson while representing himself, paperwork that helped prove his innocence.
Because this information was not available to Johnson originally, the lawyers argued that Johnson should have found this information sooner, arguing that his conviction was valid due to a lack of timeliness with the evidence. Essentially, Johnson was being held in prison on a technicality.
Whether Johnson was guilty or innocent seemed to matter to the lawyers far less than the technical timeliness of the evidence. Johnson would not stand for this. He began doing everything he could to raise awareness of his case. He wrote between 500 and 700 letters to various organizations committed to helping the wrongfully incarcerated, and he wrote for the newsletters of grassroots organizations as well as independent magazines. He was even given a column in the Huffington Post to write about his story and the problem of wrongful convictions in the criminal justice system.
“You’re stuck in a box with an investigation [that] had to start all over again. [It took] a whole bunch of manpower, it took a lot. So all the outlets are utilized,” Johnson said.
Johnson never stopped working, and he never even came close to giving up. He was able to start a website called freelorenzojohnson.org which helped educate, not only about Johnson’s story, but also about the problem of wrongful incarceration across America. The site went viral, and ended up with 26 different countries petitioning the courts to free him.
Johnson’s supporters even organized rallies outside of the Attorney General’s office in Pennsylvania. Johnson himself used most of the money he had in prison to buy postage, ink, and photocopies.
Throughout his time in prison, Johnson was able to keep in touch with his children, even when the cost of a phone call sometimes went up to $16.00. Prison takes a toll on everybody involved, whether they are inside or out. Johnson saw these effects, particularly with the girlfriend he had at the time of his imprisonment.
“My girlfriend, we broke up immediately because at that time, she wanted to help me,” Johnson said. “And when she tried to come forth to help me, they tried to take her kids. So she left. So that went out the window.”
Johnson was finally exonerated after all his efforts in 2017. However, like for many formerly incarcerated individuals, reentry was incredibly difficult. As Johnson puts it, people are released with “no toothbrush, no bus fare. They let you go after 20 years, you're free to go home to your family. What family that's left after 20 years?”
According to Johnson, the biggest challenge of reentry is navigating mental health. People need therapy after leaving prison, and this is not always available.
“The mental part of it never leaves you,” Johnson said.
Reentry was particularly strenuous for Johnson because he returned home to a sick mother who passed away about six months after he came home. He had to plan her funeral by himself while simultaneously trying to heal from the trauma of prison.
In order to deal with these difficult times, Johnson leaned on the friends he had made in prison. He views these friends as a brotherhood, as they acted as his family for years. They raised him and watched him grow and struggle, and having that brotherhood to lean on has been immensely important for Johnson.
After reentering society, Johnson was able to get a job working at the YMCA, and eventually he was able to get a job working at a travel agency, which he held for three years. However, Johnson had always wanted to pursue a career in clothes. He simply had never had the time.
When COVID hit however, Johnson was furloughed from his job at the travel agency, giving him time to pursue other interests. Johnson began his clothing line, LoZo Couture, around five months ago. He offers clothes for both males and females, and uses his own logo in order to identify his brand.
His logo includes a symbol that represents “live, life, love.” The name LoZo comes from Johnson’s own name, taking his first name, Lorenzo, and shortening it into a nickname.
Johnson designs his clothes and takes his ideas to his vendor, and they work together to finalize a design. Now, Johnson has his own LoZo Couture website in order to sell his clothes.
Johnson believed in himself enough to start his own business, and now loves the work he gets to do. The same way his hardship gave him the drive to learn and represent himself in court, Johnson’s complex story of incarceration gives him the drive to continue his business.
“I'm just confident because of what I went through. You know, my story is crazy. And I'm a little crazy. You [get] a little crazy, going through all that,” Johnson said. “But like I said, I was forced to have this drive.”
Johnson is proud to be a part of Witness to Mass Incarceration’s “MAP” of formerly incarcerated owned businesses. He believes The MAP is needed badly because it can show the need to change the criminal justice system. The MAP can show the ingenuity and inventiveness of formerly incarcerated people which can inspire others to wake up and make change.
Johnson believes the criminal justice system isn’t broken, rather he thinks that it was designed to be unfair. He wants people to learn that the system does not need to be fixed, instead needing to be completely changed. As Johnson says, “You can't fix what wasn't broke.”
Throughout all his struggles and all the unfair treatment, Johnson still manages to succeed and thrive. He doesn’t want to waste his time being angry when there is so much he can do in the world.
“It takes a lot of energy to be mad and bitter,” Johnson said. “Am I disappointed in the criminal justice system? Yes. But I'm not mad [or] angry.”
Johnson, who is also a two time cancer survivor, has been through hell and back. He knows that there is no point wasting time on unhappiness.
“I try to live life to the fullest,” Johnson said. “I believe that there's two things in life you can't get back: wasted time and life. So I try to do everything.”
Abby Stern