Baltimore state’s attorney drops Keith Davis Jr.’s criminal cases

BALTIMORE — The criminal charges against Keith Davis Jr., who was tried in Baltimore four times for the same murder, are no more.

Davis, 31, was taken into custody by police in 2015. locked behind bars for murder in the shooting death of Kevin Jones, a Pimlico racecourse security guard. He has always maintained that he is innocent.

Newly elected Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates dropped all charges against Davis on Friday morning — ending a case that Bates describes as a tainted prosecution led by his predecessor, Marilyn Mosby, and fulfilling a promise he made to Davis’ wife and supporters over his two campaigns to be the city’s top prosecutor.

“We recognize at this moment with what has happened, the personal animus toward Mr. Davis Jr., his supporters, his family, there’s no way that you can say there would actually be justice with this case,” Bates told The Baltimore Sun in an exclusive interview.

Baltimore Circuit Judge John Nugent ruled in June that one of Mosby’s prosecutions against Davis, an attempted murder charge A fight that he had during his imprisonment led to him being incarcerated. makings of vindictive prosecution. Nugent issued a gag order prohibiting any parties from discussing the case. Mosby broke the order and was indicted. contempt of court last summer.

While Nugent stopped short of dismissing all the charges, as Davis’ attorneys requested, or finding vindictiveness in the murder case, Bates told The Sun he believes it was also a wrongful prosecution.

Deputy State’s Attorney Thomas Donnelly said the case’s prosecutorial history shows “blatant disregard” for the law and for the rules of professional conduct, and that there would be serious questions about the integrity and legitimacy of any future prosecution of Davis.

Public Defender Deborah Katz Levi, who represents Davis, said there were so many issues with the case, from the missing ballistics evidence, to late-to-be-turned-over surveillance footage, to the police shooting investigation, there was no way any prosecution would be done with justice in mind.

“Every single aspect of this case raised questions about the integrity of the prosecution and the integrity of the system,” Levi said.

Jones’ grandmother, Earlene Neals, said she was upset when she learned Thursday that the charges would be dropped against Davis.

”I was screaming and hollering so loud,” Neals told The Sun in a phone interview Friday morning. “Now I’m angry. Kevin was a failure of the system.

”She described the years of court proceedings in the case as stressful for the family.

”He was found guilty and sentenced and then they tell us it’s gonna be another trial. This is crazy,” Neals said. ” Soon as we were able to come to grips with this, they come around and shoot us something else.”

Bates didn’t say that he was declaring Davis innocence, but he did add that it was difficult to make the decision to drop charges.

“I fully recognize the pain and anguish that repeated unsuccessful prosecutions have caused the victim’s family, and I truly sympathize with them,” Bates said. “Still, as state’s attorney, I have a duty to ensure justice for all, not just the victim but also the accused.”

Davis’ release comes after his wife, Kelly, whom he married while incarcerated, built a grassroots campaign and waged all-out political war against Mosby and the Baltimore Police Department over what she and her husband’s supporters believe was always a sham prosecution.

“I thought we would go through a trial and he would be acquitted,” Kelly Davis said. “I never dreamed of the charges being dropped. Marilyn Mosby would soon be out of office, I had no idea. It took seven years to slay her.”

Kelly Davis organized activists, spending years shining a light on what she believes are Mosby’s wrongdoings and a broken criminal justice system. From rallies to town halls to even Mosby’s ventures out on the town, it was a safe bet that either Kelly or one of her husband’s supporters would be there to demand Keith’s release.

Kelly Davis stated that she has fought to expose the truth seven years ago.

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Jones was shot 11 times while on his way to work at 4:45 AM, June 7, 2015. He died in the parking lot behind the horse racing track.

Later that day, around 10 a.m., Keith Davis had just bought a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store in the Park Heights neighborhood when someone yelled “gun” and Davis started running, he later recalled, according to court records. Four Baltimore Police officers chased him down an alleyway to an auto shop, believing he was the suspect in the attempted robbery of a licensed cab driver at gunpoint.

Officers fired more than 30 shots at Davis as he hid behind the refrigerator in the garage. One shot to his head shattered Davis’ jawbone. He was in critical condition when he was taken to the hospital. Later, police officers said that Davis shot at them, and that they found the gun on top.

Later, it was revealed that Davis had not fired at police officers. The only shell casings that were found at the scene came from police service weapons. A report from the city’s former independent Civilian Review Board, which oversaw claims of police misconduct, found “inconsistent testimonies” between the officers as to whether Davis had a gun, and found “serious discrepancies” between what the officers said in court and what they reported to internal affairs.

The board recommended that two officers be fired and that two other officers be suspended for 30 jours. Mosby’s office cleared all the officers of criminal wrongdoing in the shooting.

It is not clear that the gun found in Jones’ garage was fired that day, as prosecutors have long claimed. Daniel Lamont, a firearms examiner with the police department, testified at Davis’ third murder trial that there was no gunshot residue in the barrel when police examined the weapon.

Davis, the first person shot by Baltimore Police after Freddie Gray’s death from injuries sustained in city police custody, has always maintained the gun — a target pistol purchased from a Glen Burnie consignment shop frequented by police — was never his.

“I believe they put that gun on me,” Davis testified in 2017, because “they didn’t have a reason to shoot me.”

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Davis was charged in the 2016 armed robbery by a unlicensed cabdriver and is currently on trial. jury found he was not guilty Except for the prohibition of carrying a gun, there is no charge.

A week later, authorities charged him with murder in Jones’ killing. Police and prosecutors said ballistics testing determined the gun Davis was convicted of having matched casings found at the scene of Jones’ death. The ballistics were examined by the practice experts, also known as firearm toolmark analysis, has come under scrutiny more recently and was challenged by Davis’ defense during his murder trials.

The verdicts of his four murder trials were as follows: In 2017, the jury failed to reach a consensus at his first trial. A second jury found him guilty in the same year. The conviction was overturned later when a judge ruled that the prosecutors had withheld crucial information from his defense. In his third trial, another jury was hung. Davis’ fourth, in 2019, led to a conviction, but it was again overturned following a sweeping appellate court ruling.

His attorney had filed a separate motion for a new trial claiming prosecutors misrepresented evidence in their closing arguments, but the motion was made moot with the appellate court’s ruling.

Approximately two weeks after a Baltimore judge tossed out Davis’ conviction and ordered a fifth trial, city prosecutors charged Davis with attempted murder stemming from an alleged stabbing in jail. This was almost one year ago after the altercation.

Citing concerns about the timing of the jail fight charges, Nugent, the Circuit Court judge who presided over Davis’ case most recently, found there was a “presumption of vindictiveness” behind the prosecution.

Nugent stated in his finding that no weapon was found in the cell where the altercation took place and that surveillance video didn’t show what the prosecutors claimed.

A former state’s attorney spokeswoman said at the time the office charged Davis in the jail fight because he was awarded a new trial and they considered him “a public safety threat.”

All the while, Kelly Davis and a group of supporters known as “Team Keith,” continued organizing against Mosby. In 2018, they protested during a state’s attorney candidate debate and Mosby addressed the criticism by proclaiming “violent repeat offenders do not like me,” though Davis hadn’t been convicted of a crime of violence before and his wife had no criminal record.

Mosby, 2021 gave the middle finger to a Davis supporter who was riding his bicycle past her at a waterfront bar calling out “Free Keith Davis Jr.” At first, she denied displaying the profane gesture but later, after public backlash, admitted to doing so.

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Kelly Davis, who has moved out of Maryland, described the past seven years as “literal hell,” something she wants no one else to go through.

She claimed she was tired. Tired of trying and going to sleep every night after waking up to her husband who was hundreds of miles away.

“I’m looking forward to being able to just put down my shield and my spear and everything I’ve had to fight with and be a wife and not an advocate,” she said.

Davis and Davis were both in prison at the time they married. They have never lived together as a married couple.

Even though Keith is her “best friend,” adjusting to life with him at home will be hard, Kelly Davis said.

“I don’t know what it looks like to live with Keith and I don’t know what it looks like for him to be here every day,” Kelly Davis said.

Kelly Davis said she’s anxious about coexisting in a place her husband has never lived — a place with no sidewalks, no rowhomes, no corner stores.

The couple will have to figure out how to co-parent Kelly Davis’ four children, who consider Keith their father. Even though Keith and the kids talk regularly, Kelly Davis said he will have to adjust to the young adults they’ve become in the seven years he was locked away.

“When you’re incarcerated, time stops for you,” she said. “He doesn’t understand that they’ve evolved in this.”

Keith Davis said in a telephone interview that he wanted to be there for his family in August.

“Hopefully we can start over and start fresh and be successful,” he said.

Their 12-year-old son is celebrating his birthday next week, which will be the first time he’ll be home. The mundane tasks of everyday life are exciting. Kelly shared that they often discuss what it would be like to go shopping together. Going to church. To Walmart.

Kelly stated that she had told her husband, Kelly, about an argument they had over who was supposed to unload the dishwasher. She joked with him and asked if he wanted to return to this.

“The things you take for granted, I would love,” she recalled him saying.

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(This article was contributed by Cassidy Jensen, Baltimore Sun reporter, and Paul McCardell, librarian.

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