A grand jury has brought a string of charges against the seven bail bondsmen and said they did not follow the correct procedure when trying to detain a fugitive.
Just after midnight on April 23, Johnson and four friends were sitting in a Nissan sedan in a Walmart parking lot in Clarksville, Tennessee.
The seven bounty hunters thought they were closing in on William Ellis, who was wanted on a number of court warrants.
For some reason they began firing into the car. The driver sped off, with the bounty hunters in two cars in hot pursuit.
They chased the innocent men for six miles before ramming their car and firing more bullets into the vehicle. Johnson, who was sitting in the back, was fatally wounded and the driver was also injured.
Jeffrey Milan told The Leaf Chronicle newspaper: "They killed my cousin and tried to kill everybody in the car and all for nothing. They never had the right person. The person they wanted is still out there, still out on the streets."
Clarksville Police spokesman Jim Knoll said: "After an exhaustive investigation, numerous man hours expended interviewing individuals, processing crime scenes, and sorting through statements and evidence, the information was presented to the grand jury for consideration."
William Byles, 31, Kenneth Chiasson, 38, Antwon Keesee, 32, Jonathan Schnepp, 31, Roger West, 31, Prentice Williams, 34, and Joshua Young, 27, have all been charged with first degree murder.
They have also been indicted by the grand jury on 15 other charges, including attempted murder and the aggravated kidnapping of Johnson's friends, Jaydon Hogan, Marquentas Gold and Tyrone McKeage.
In Tennessee, bounty hunters can carry weapons but may use deadly force only in self-defense. None of the men in the car had been armed.
Bond was set at US$300,000 for each man.
But the dead man's uncle, Ronnie Milan, objected to them being offered bail.
"He can't get out of the casket, so they shouldn't be able to get out on bond. He was 24 and healthy as a tree and now he's dead and gone," Milan said.
There are 14,000 bail bondsmen in the US and thousands of bounty hunters.
The most famous of them is Duane "Dog" Chapman, who had his own TV series "Dog: The Bounty Hunter."
Chapman made international headlines in 2003, when he captured Max Factor cosmetics heir Andrew Luster, who had fled to Mexico and was convicted in absentia of drugging and raping several women.
Last month it was reported that the IRS were planning on hiring bounty hunters.
In most US states suspects are freed from custody on the posting of a bail bond, the cost of which depends on the severity of the offence and the risk of absconding.
In most cases relatives put up collateral — cash or property — which can be forfeited if the person vanishes.
Bonds are provided by a bail bondsman, who is effectively gambling on the defendant turning up at court.
In the Quentin Tarantino movie Jackie Brown, Robert Forster plays bail bondsman Max Cherry, who takes a bond out on Pam Grier and ends up involved in a violent struggle with Samuel L. Jackson's character, Ordell Robbie.
A premium is charged for each bond, which is where the bail bond firms make their profits.
If the defendant goes missing the bondsman stands to lose his money, which is where the bounty hunter comes in.
He, or she, is given the task of finding the miscreant and bringing them back.
In 1998, Betty Caballero, a pregnant woman miscarried after being beaten by a bounty hunter who mistakenly targeted her while looking for a woman who had skipped bail, sued the bail bonds firm but lost.
