#585 Jason Flom with Keith LaMar

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, it's Connor Hall, senior producer for Wrongful Conviction with
another case update and more behind the scenes insights. And
today we're talking about a case that for me was
about as difficult to cover as only a few others,
namely Brendan Dacy, Rodney Reid, Leonard Peltier. It took me
about six weeks to produce the final episodes in each

(00:27):
of those cases. And also for this man here, Keith Lamar.
I've been speaking with his advocate Amy Gordeev since about
twenty twenty one, and at that point the task was
just too damn big. We're talking about five murders, one
of which happened separately from the other four, and all

(00:47):
of the alleged witnesses gave their statements while in prison.
I mean some are still in there. Some probably never
spoke to a defense attorney, let alone a journalist, given
their own culpability. So we were gonna need re enforcements.
And over time the team at Levigne, Bell, Doc and
Hoffman got involved and did a lot of the heavy lifting,

(01:08):
and they were able to build on Keith's previous attorneys work,
piecing together all the ways in which each of the
witnesses in this case had changed their stories along the
way and then benefited from doing so. And as I
understand it, a number of other folks, some of whom
I've become aware of in the past couple of years,
have come forward about the part they played in this case.

(01:31):
So we're looking forward to that information being presented to
the court. As Keith is quickly running out of time.
His execution date is set for January thirteenth, twenty twenty seven,
and Governor DeWine once again has a chance to step
in and grant some sort of relief. Perhaps those running
to replace him in November twenty twenty six will take

(01:54):
up this issue and state their intentions for Keith and
the death penalty in jen in Ohio. I mean, it's
not news to any of us here that the criminal
legal system in Ohio is deeply troubled. Now, after you
hear Keith's story, maybe you'll agree that there are enough
problems in Ohio and it's hard to trust any conviction,

(02:16):
especially those on death row, because the stakes are so high.
A lot of corners get cut.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Originally this was a two parter, but I edited it
down to just one with some voiceover. I get to
the heart of the matter a lot quicker while preserving
the details, and some of those details will have you
wondering how some folks sleep at night.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
On Easter Sunday nineteen ninety three and May said, Lucasville
Prison in Ohio, it took control of an entire cell block.
The crisis that became known as the Lucasville Prison Riot
lasted eleven days and claimed ten lives, including one of
the prison guards. When the cell block was finally under
an investigation ensued aimed at bringing the riot leadership to justice.

(03:05):
After several rounds of interviews, five names emerged, including a
man who lived on that cell block named Keith Lamar.
According to the state, Keith had allegedly commanded a team
of men who murdered four supposed snitches before heading out
to the prison yard, where the authorities ushered all the
inmates into another block that was still under state control. Then,

(03:26):
while confined in a cell with nine other men, he
allegedly ordered one more death. The other inmates weren't telling
this particular story in their initial interviews, but by the
time of Keith's Capitol trial, they were all somehow singing
the same tune, but this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back

(03:55):
to wrongful Conviction. Today's guest is somebody I've been waiting
for for a long time. His story. As terrifying as
it is, it's also the stuff of legend because this
is a man, and Keith, I'm talking about you. I'm
talking about you in the third person. I'm going to
talk directly to you. Now, Keith, you have had a
life that if somebody wrote it into a movie, nobody

(04:17):
would believe it. And this is a guy. Now I'm
back to talking about the third person who has performed
concerts all over the world from inside of your cell
on death row.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
It's so bizarre when I hear you say it, you know,
but yeah, it's been. It's been a hell of a
journey man to say at least, and this situation that
I'm currently facing has only focused me more all trying
to get as much life out of my life as
I possibly can.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, I mean, despite fighting for your very life from
death row, which is literally hell on Earth, your pursuit
of art and life seems to have only gotten stronger.
And like I just mentioned, you've put on this spoken
word than jazz concerts series called Freedom First, and if
that wasn't enough, you also put out an album by
the same name. But there's even more, you know, there's.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Books, documentaries, book clubs, and so on and so forth.
I'll just wake up and try to do as much
as I can with the time that I have, you know,
which is what we all should be doing.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Right yeah. I mean, I don't even know a lot
of people out here in the free world who are
living as much as you are inside the literal living
hell of Ohio death Throw. And we're going to get
into all of that in more detail later on, and
we're also going to be hearing from one of your attorneys,
Keegan Stefan, as well. But now I just want to

(05:39):
turn around first and start from the beginning of your life.
You were born and grew up in Cleveland, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
I was born in nineteen sixty nine on the east
side of Cleveland, Ohio, in a small little end place
called the Village. You know that I was saying, it
takes a village, I think for the people who founded
this little place took seriously. My grandfather Lamar brought his
own home in this little enclave. It was made up
of people who were in one form or another related

(06:07):
and you know, during dinner time, you're gonna walk into
any number of houses and you know, people will let
you sit down and eat dinner. But there was no
distinction about the economic status because everybody was pretty much
on the same level. And that's where I really grew
up at from a baby until I was around seven
or eight, and my mother met and married a man
named Larry Morris, and shortly thereafter we moved out of

(06:30):
the village into the inner city.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Basically, I mean, the village sounds pretty amazing. It seems
like an odd choice to leave. What were the circumstances.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Well, my grandmother, she was to make sure of the family,
pretty much said what when and what didn't go in
our family. And my stepfather didn't like that, and so
he moved so he can kind of run his own household.
But he was a side or the steff at a
country club, working for meager wages. And so that was
the first time in my life that I ever remember

(06:59):
being home greed and sometimes, you know, the lights would
be off, the gas would be off, and we had
to heat the house with you know, keeping the oven
door open and whatnot. And we weren't allowed to tell
my grandparents about this. To him, my brother and I,
we were just two extra miles to feed. I had
two paper routes, cutting grass, shoveling snow, you know did

(07:22):
all those things. You know, pants might cost fifty sixty dollars.
And this was before Edic Jordan came out potentis shoes.
It was just out of my range as a kid
trying to do it the legitimate way. And you know,
kids are brutal, man. You know, you show up with
some knockoff Jordass jeans and you mass well came to
school but naked. You know, the ridicule was severe. It's

(07:44):
all authoritarily bullshit, but you don't know that when you
were a kid. And my brother, when I was ten,
who was twelve, he was hanging out with older kids,
and you know, he had undergone the same ridicule as
I did and had quickly off to becoming thief and
been sent to bate to juvenile And so I was
thirteen by then pretty much by myself, and started hanging

(08:07):
with a group of older kids in the neighborhood. And
one day we all piled into a stolen car and
a police officer got right behind us, and we was
in this high speed chase like on the eighteen miles
an hour down the residential district. And I was actually
relieved when I got caught, like thank God. And we
went before the judge and he lined us, all us,

(08:27):
about six of us altogether, in our families, and he
went down the line. He was giving guy six months
for each offense that they'd had. And he said, Joe Bruce,
this your third time in front of me, eighteen months.
Joe Butler, this your second time a year, you know.
And he got down to me. He said, Keith Lamar said,
what are you doing hanging with these bad boys now,
you know? And he gave my mother and my parents

(08:47):
the options. Do you need to take them home and
deal with them or I deal with them? You know.
A stepfather told him, you deal with them.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
And your mother didn't have anything to say about that.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
You know. Ideally, that's what you would have hoped to intervene.
But she she had already been broken to the point
where she accepted somebody like this as her husband. You know,
any man is better than no man. And as it
turns out, he was. He was like a monster. He was,
you know, the very abusive tab.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
How long was your stint in juvie?

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Six months? But I was thirteen, so it felt like
six years. Believing that not compared the situation I lived
and wasn't so bad. I had pre square meals a day.
I was in a structured environment. I came out of it.
I was on a on a roll.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
And who knows, maybe you could have kept going in
that direction had you returned to a more stable, you know,
home in life.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
When I when I came home, I came home. My
parents had moved into a two bedroom department as if
my brother and I had went off to the army
or something that we weren't coming back home, and so
we moved up into this uninsulated attic. Was freezing cold
in the winter, squorching hot in the summer, and we
were pretty much put on notice that we were on
our own. Beyond our eyes. There necessities that we would

(10:02):
not be provided for. And I was thirteen. Still when
I came home, I think I'm gonna have to start
selling marijuana. Weed. I brought two ounces of marijuana and
I didn't look back. Man, that was the beginning of
the end for me.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, what about your brother.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
My brother had found the means of escape. He met
this girl named Paula who lives in the suburbs, and
her mother took a liking to my brother and allow
him to move in with them, and he was going
to school in suburbs. So it's me basically by myself.
Now I'm fourteen years old. I'm selling marijuana. I'm so
serious about it too, because I figured this is my

(10:38):
only way out. And I became very good at that.
I had about five or six guys working for me
and everything, selling marijuana on the street corners and whatnot.
And I came home one day and discovered that my
stepfather had been up in my room and had found
one of my statues of money. Not long after that,
my stepfather kicked me out. I was fifteen years old
and I moved into the project. And this is around

(11:01):
eighty five eighty six, right around the time crack cocaine
started trickling into the ghetto. Nobody really knew what it was,
how dangerous it was. By the time I was sixteen,
I had a mistake his Bens Cadillac driving Porsches, BMW
Rolettes Watchers, but run a year of two about nineteen
eighty eight, and all the detrimental effects of crack cocaine

(11:24):
really started to become clear. Guys I grew up with
were becoming dope fiends, and young women were selling their bodies.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
And as the crack epidemic were on, the community became
increasingly desperate, affecting even Keith's childhood friend, Kenyata Collins.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
You know, he and I grew up together. We used
to walk to school together, played basketball together. By the
time nineteen eighty eight rolled around, he was hooked on
the crack cocaine, fell in with a group of guys
that used to go around robbing drug dealers.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
And on December second, nineteen eighty eight, Keith was at
the apartment when Kenyata and the stick up kids showed up.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
And guys were forcing their way into the apartment. I
was shot twice, myself in the legs, you know, I
shot looking out twice, and he came through the door.
I woke up in the hospital and I was right
next to the king out of Collins. I heard the
doctors when they pronounced them then, and you know, I
woke up again and that was changed to hospital big

(12:21):
Even once I was able to walk again. I went
to the county jail and I bombed out.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
I mean, this is not a legal opinion, but your
actions in this incident sure sound like self defense and
the purest sense of the word.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
But I didn't have access to the old self defense
laws because I was selling drugs. My hands weren't playing right.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
So what was your attorney's plan?

Speaker 3 (12:42):
This attorney came to me on the evil trial and
told me, you know, that they were going to try
to put me on death row. And since I was
so ignorant out of law, I didn't know that they
elevate could climb in order to entice you to take
in the deal I played, gifts you to murder. It
really should have been manslaughtering, you know, out in the

(13:03):
state of defending myself. No fourth thoutar, malice or anything
went into us. It was manslaughter, you know. He convinced
me that that was in my benefit. That comped out.
They gave me eighteen years the life of that and
I remember that just saying, you know, don't worry about
the son. It's it's only twelve years six months to
the pro boy. But of course he didn't tell me

(13:26):
about the danger I was waiting into they send me
to Lebanon eleven in Ohio. It was three major factions
that kind of control the resources inside the person. The
Black ash Disciples sending Muslims although they don't consider themselves
a gang, and Aaron Brotherhoods. It's purpose a building kind

(13:47):
of a racism that I had. You know, the in
word you heard it constantly right around the clock. In
word is in word that. But I'm talking about my staff,
not just by the prisoners. We were down in southern
Ohio to Aaron Brotherhood were being armed by the guards
who worked there, some of whom were in the Aaron Brotherhood.
They had swashakers on their next And after hearing all

(14:10):
these war stories and young guys like me being raped,
you know, I kind of fixed my mind that that
wouldn't happen to me.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
But you didn't join the Sunni Muslims or the Black
gangster Disciples, right, oh?

Speaker 3 (14:21):
You presume I wasn't in the Aaron Brotherhood I met.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
How rude of me not thought at that. I mean,
I'm sure their invite got lost somehow.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
I never got an invite. But the first thing I
did when I came to let them, I joined the
boxing team. You know, once twice a year you have
a boxing match in front of the whole prison. You
could show everybody what you made off and people performed
the opinion after that as to whether or not you
are easy game or whatever.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
You know.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
But I got my DDD and then they rolled into
the college program, so I was on the trib attory
in terms of preparing myself for this.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
This parolee date thing out of a prison gang was
part of that plan, which continued after Keith was transferred
from Lebanon to Lucasville in nineteen ninety one, which was
arguably a more difficult and violent situation because of a
truly tragic incident involving an adult education teacher who worked
at the prison.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Beverly Taylor was annee and she was murdered by a
black prisoner. Calls for the guy to be executed or
being put forth by the community, but the guy was
mentally handicapped and was deemed ineligible for the death ninity,
So they didn't get what they wanted, and so ultimately
a new warden was appointed a guy and they offer

(15:37):
take I think around ninety ninety one off the Tate
instituted this thing called operations shakedown, and he started kind
of turning the scrooves, tightening up on everything. You know,
you have to have your shirt tucked in at all times,
you got to walk on the right side of the hallway.
It was more or less like a military camp down.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
You know.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
Something that happened over night he set up this po box.
If you wanted to drop the dime on somebody's warned
to become a sniss, you just put an anonymous note
in the mailbox on your way to chow all the
various factions for being pitted against each other, and you
can kind of cut the tission with it nice.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
And there was one incident in particular that kind of
pushed the whole thing over the edge.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
They came up with this berclosis test and if Hemily
had an alcoholic sssant called Feno that the Muslims extendously
objected to, and the Warden Tate gave him off amazing,
you either take the tests or we're going to make
you take it.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
So April eleventh, nineteen ninety three was Easter Sunday, and
Warden Tate planned unforcibly injecting the Sunni Muslim population on Monday,
April twelfth, So the Sunnies devised a plan to seize
control of an entire cell block by taking advantage of
the skeleton crew that worked on the holidays. Now, to
give you a lay of the land, Lucasville Prisons sprawled

(16:59):
out and ford directions like a wheel with four spokes,
one spoken compass maintenance, the hospital and dining hall. Walking
from there toward the center, you'd meet up with the
other three spokes, J block to the right, Kate to
the left, an L block straight ahead. Now, K and
L both consisted of a long hallway with a jim
athy N and eight wings to the sides, L one,

(17:21):
L two, and so on. Keith lived in L six.
It was about three pm when Keith and the other
prisoners were in the yard between K and L block
when the Sunni Muslims saw their chance and struck.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Recreation was just about to end. They called over the
intercom ten minute warning for everybody started lining up to
come back inside the prison. And while we were standing
in line, a guard ran out with blood streaming down
his space, and he was followed by masks in make
care and the nine stickies, and we'd taken over we're
taken over. You know, I never forget it. And it
was just around thirty minutes or so that took over

(17:58):
the whole L Side.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Person and they later barricaded themselves into L Block and
held it for eleven days. But at this point Keith
was still out on the yard and had no idea
what was going on or what was to come.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
News started to circle out that they were, you know,
ramsacking the sales and everything. What was actually happening, They
was going from sale to sale, accumulating food, telling people
that they had to donate whatever food stuff that they
had so they can administer it during the ensuing days.
But the word that reached us on the yard was
that they was robbing the sails. And so it was

(18:34):
with that misinformation that I, against my better judgment, decided
to go inside and check on my personal belongings.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
And this decision to go inside L Block was how
eventually Keith's name got dragged into what happened on L Sex.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
When I went in, I kind of immediately understood that,
you know, this is something more involved than just one
prisoner attacking the guard, because they were breaking windows, our
larns was going off. I mean it was pandemonium, and
you know, I made my way to my signed the
cell block L six, and in contrast to the chaos
that was going on in the corridors, it was very

(19:12):
very quiet. You know, guards were already locked into the
shower stalls, and there was different prisoners inside of the
cells who I later learned were but I didn't know
that at the time I came in, and not really understanding,
I ran down to my cell and there was a
person inside of my cell, and so instinctively I ran
up to the control panel trying to unlock my door

(19:32):
so I can get this person out of my cell,
because as far as I was sign that confirmed. But
I already kind of figured that somebody was rifling through
my things, but you know, he was a hoshist. I
went up to the control panel, was turning the knobs randomly,
you know, not really understanding how to work the panel,
and opened up a few other doors in invertedly, and
you know, that alerted the Sunny Muslims who were inside

(19:54):
the part, and they accostant me and told me, you
know know in certain terms that you know this is
what's going on, Willers, So you get the fuck out
of here. And you know, I chose to leave unless
it came back onto the yard.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Keith was ultimately accused of killing four men during his
short trip inside L Block. The hostages being held on
L six, who, according to the state, or snitches. At
this point, I want to bring in one of the
attorneys representing Keith. He's an associate at Bell Doc Lebin
and Hoffman. Keegan Stephan. Welcome to the show. Thank you so, Keegan.
The state's narrative of what happened on that awful Easter

(20:27):
Sunday in nineteen ninety three obviously diverges from Keith's version
of events, but let's start with where they are the same.

Speaker 4 (20:35):
You know, Keith was not in L six when the
riots started, even by the state's theory and narrative of events. Second,
you know, this riot was very deliberately planned by a
group of people that Keith was not a part of.
And again the state concedes that, which seems like a
very important point.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Right, But now the state disagrees with what we've already
heard from Keith.

Speaker 4 (20:57):
Yeah, so that's where their stories diverge. Keith goes in
to get his belongings and leaves. That is what numerous
alibi witnesses say the state says that he goes in
and then forms a death squad and executes the people
that have been locked in their cells.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
And this death squad was allegedly made up of Keith
and four or five others who brutally murdered four alleged
snitches that were being held hostage on L six, Daryl Depina,
Albert Steano, William Spetty, and Bruce Vitally. But what did
they say was Keith's motivation for this?

Speaker 4 (21:30):
The state says that it's effectively a bargaining chip that
if he forms this death squad and executes these alleged snitches,
then he can get out of L six, he can leave.
You know, people who staged the uprising have said that
Keith would not have had that power, that they wouldn't
have let that happen, that this wouldn't have been a
bargaining chip to let people leave. So it's inconsistent with

(21:53):
what was going on in the prison, and it's inconsistent
with what Keith was doing. It's inconsistent with numerous alibi witnesses.
It's only consistent with the stories of the people who
testified against Keith, who were obviously highly motivated to testify
in that manner.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
And later on we'll get into the testimonies of those
receiving either leniency, shorter sentences, immunity, a transfer, or most
of the above. But first let's get back to the
story from Keith's perspective from when he returned to the
yard and the prison was in full crisis and chaos mode.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
I mean, helicopters were flying up above over the prison,
and then gradually the National Guards showed up, the Ohio
State Patrol showed up, and they took up stands around
outside the perimeter fence and they you know, machine guns
out and riot here, the riot helmets and everything, and
so we're thinking, this is any amount of time before

(22:46):
they regain order, and an hour go by, two hours
to go by, and then the body started coming out,
you know, a coup of masks inmates that come out
of the building waved and would it like to be
of a machete and it was real then that body
on the yard. Ten fifteen minutes to go by, and
someone for an administration of Medica or whatever come and

(23:08):
recreate the body and take it back through the k
Side area. Thirty minutes to go by another body, then
another body, another body. Then it start getting dark outside,
started getting cold, and then eventually guys started setting bomb fires,
you know, out from the wood from the boxing rings,
and you got to stand. You know, the boxing rink

(23:29):
was my Saints Agararily, this was a place where I
went to to kind of, you know, make peace with
all the bullshit that I've been through my life. You know,
I'm tearing a boxing ring up, trying to get full
so I can start a fire, because it's chilly April
for silly at nighttime. So if we're standing around the
fires and everything and all while this is happening, the

(23:50):
Highway Control of the National Guards is standing there watching.
By now, I don't know, five or six bodies have
been brought out to the yard, and most of them dead.
People whose job it is to stop me from being
one of those dead bodies are standing on the outside
of the fence. And this inavetle that you take in
the notes and that one of these bodies could be mine.

(24:27):
Around three o'clock in the morning, Highway State Patrol came
out Gune Strong and ordered all of us to line
up to innerd case out of Gymnasium Once we got
inside of there, they stripped all of us naked, took
all our clothes and made us sit down in the
middle over the gymnasium floor, probably about four hundred people
or something, and we stayed there like that and total

(24:48):
starts nakedness for hours the same life. Eventually they started
taking us random groups of ten and escorting us to
these single man's sales. So they put ten neckd into
it in these sales. The side of a closet, my
recollection is right, and I'm in K two thirty six
or nine other making individuals.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
And in that cell the fifth murder happened, and the
States says that Keith's ordered the murder. You know, Keith
says that there was a confrontation and that he had
nothing to do with it.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
When they finally came around and gave us jumpsuits, and
that long after that, Prow salances in the sale, which
is the first time many of us had eating since
the whole old deal started. There was like a feeding frenzy.
Some guys took more than his share. And Dennis Weaver,
he was one of the older prisoners in the cell,
and he, you know, held onto his dignity and refuse

(25:39):
the Candra joined the freight and made the mistake of
saying something about it to this guy William Bowl and
got a named Sabet and sebast put him in a
choke hold, and these two other prisoners held his feet down,
you know, because he was struggling trying to free himself.
When the authorities came to remove dinner from the ceale
and tried to question us, Eye, along with most of

(26:01):
the guys in the sale, said that we were asleep,
which was our way of saying that we didn't want
to be involved, because that's one of the things you
learned in prison, to avoid violence by minding your own business.
And we don't know at the time that why not
saying anything, we allowed the guy who actually committed the
murder to shift the brain. You know. He said he
was forced to kill Dennis by me and several other individuals.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
You know, it's a pretty wild leap to go from
someone not telling you the complete truth, from someone saying
that they were asleep, to saying that they ordered a murder.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
It's also obviously hard or impossible to order a murder
when you don't have a weapon or the cloud of
a prison gang behind you, but that's what the state
and its cooperators ended up saying Keith did. Once the
riot thus settled and many rounds of interviews began, but
at this point the instigators of the riot were barricaded
into L Block, armed with the prison's hostage negotiation handbook

(26:55):
and eight hostages making demands while anticipating the authority's moves. Wednesday,
April fourteenth, a sheet was hung from a window threatening
the death of a hostage if their demands were not met.
Among those demands were food, water, electricity, access to the
news media, a stipulation regarding any future medical testing, the
hiring of more blackguards, the relaxation of day to day restrictions,

(27:18):
and various quality of life improvements, as well as the
removal of Arthur Tate. Now. Early Thursday morning, April fifteenth,
the body of one of the hostages, forty year old
prison guard Robert Landingham, was produced from EL Block. He
had been strangled to death. The negotiations continued, a few
hostages were released, and finally, on Wednesday, April twenty first,

(27:40):
a list of twenty one demands were met to solidify
the surrender of L Block. In the end, ten men
had died, Earl Elder, Franklin Farrell, Bruce Harris, David Summers,
Darryl Depina, Bruce Vitali, Albert Staiano, William Svetti, Dennis Weaver,
and of course the prison guard Robert for landing him.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
And so regards really show the prosecution.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
So let's talk about the investigation led by Hamilton County
prosecutors Mark Pete Meyer and Seth Tiger. We remembered their
names from other wrongful convictions, including Elwood Jones, who they
were totally willing to send a death row even though
they had scientific evidence of his innocence, So you could
draw your own conclusions from that as well as what

(28:26):
you're about to hear.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
Right, was designed over awesomely. But the Black guest Disciples,
the Sonny Muslims in a brotherhood by the goal was
to put the leadership on death row.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
It's remarkable the number of interviews that took place and
the number of times the same incarcerated people were interviewed
and how much their stories changed. Most of them did
not identify Keith in their early interviews and even affirmatively
said that Keith was not involved. And then at a
certain point in that arc of giving statements. They all

(28:59):
started identifying something shifted there and he became a very
easy scapegoat.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
Well, and brother here is represented on death row to
Sunday Muslims, I'm represented here on death row. The only
people who are not represented here on death row it's
a Black agste Disciples. Guess where there they were at
now walking the street because they testified against the leadership
of these other games. And I'm the fill in for
the Black Ante Disciples. It's an open secret. I mean,

(29:25):
it was an article that was written on the thirty
of anniversary recently in the Cincinnati Inquired and the prosecutor
is Mark Beetmark is on record and he said that,
you know, did I make the deal with the devil? Possibly?
It's possible that the guy who maybe had blood on
his hands is on the street right now. But that
was the cars that we were dealt. You know, that's

(29:45):
how the justice system works. Let's first come, first servant.
You know. The guy who Mark Petmarer was referring to
in the article was Anthony Lavelle. He was the leader
of the Black As Disciples. Basically, everything I've read, everything
I've heard, you know, been thirty years he was the
one who was really responsible for most of the killings,

(30:06):
including the guards death.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
And so it appears that the leadership of the Black
Gangster Disciples, Anthony Lavelle, Stacy Gordon, as well as others
who were actually involved in the deaths I know a block,
managed to avoid accountability by supporting the narrative that laid
blame for all ten deaths on the other four man.
And of course Keith.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
Never been in the game, but I had a prior
record for murder. I was inside of the L six
pod when I came in for that brief time. I
wasn't wearing a mask. People identified me, said Keith and
Marws inside the pot. They pulled my record. And recently,
when we did a four year inquest, we found out
that the prosecutor had written his name on my file,

(30:46):
like this is significant, this is somebody if we can use.
I had to play guilty in my original case.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
He was already facing a sentence that maxed out at life.
Everybody sort of thought he would take the plea. As
everyone who's talked to Keith knows, he's a remarkable individual
of the utmost principles, and he was not going to
plead guilty to a bunch of murders. He did not
come in.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
You know, one of the things that you don't see
on Law and Order and those different police shows on
television is that you know, it's real and formal environment.
They call you by your first name, and you know,
I thank your old buddies like Keith. Come on, we
passed that we're going to need you to cop out
to this, and you be doing yourself a favor. Otherwise
we're going to put your black ass on death row.

(31:31):
Cop out to murder, and we're running time concurrent with
the time you're already doing, and be like you're getting
off scott free. I said, but I'm innocent, though, I'm
not getting off scott free when you're talking about prolonged
my stay in prison beyond my parole day and I
haven't done anything when I was presented with this. Still
this is if you plead guilty, you'll be going to

(31:51):
parole board in your early fifties. Well, I'm fifty three
years old right now and still going to the parole board.
I'll facing execution in less than six months. I would
never spent the last thirty years inside the check of
family at the beds. I went twenty years without touching
my family. I've been on I don't know how many
homeless strikes. I would never have to go through any

(32:12):
of that. Had I played guilty to these clowns I
didn't commit or had I actually killed five people. But
if I play guilty to murder, you got one at
a time with the time over. That's a hell of
a deal for a mass murderer. But if you stand
on your innocence, they said, oh you want to try, okay,
if we're going to be in your trial.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
And that's where we left off in Part one of
Keith Lamar's coverage. Instead of taking the blame for five
debts and remaining parole eligible, Keith risked death and stood
on his innocence and was taking a trial where he
faced an uphill battle. He was tried in a nearly
all white county accused of ordering five deaths during a

(32:54):
prison riot. Four alleged snitches in L six Bruce Vitali,
Darryl Depene, Albert Staiano, and William Sevetti, as well as
Dennis Weaver in sel K two thirty six, and in
Part two we delve into the evolution of the various
witness testimonies, something that was impossible for trial council. You see,

(33:15):
during the discovery phase, rather than handing over the interview transcripts,
the state argued that it would be too difficult to
locate all the exculpatory statements, which obviously is no excuse
to violate a defendant's constitutional rights. So they were ordered
to find what they can, which is not exactly what

(33:36):
justice demands. And in a two thousand and seven evidentiary hearing,
Mark Peepmeyer outlined the incredibly narrow standard by which they
deemed something exculpatory, since these were group murders, if Keith
wasn't specifically excluded, well then that statement doesn't exclude Keith.
And it's discovered later that they hadn't even met that standard.

(34:00):
Were several states witnesses who will talk about soon. Lewis Jones,
Anthony Walker, and Stacy Gordon did just that. They excluded Keith,
but still their statements were hidden. And it gets even worse.
The prosecution argued that the identities of cooperating witnesses needed
to be protected, okay, so they were ordered to provide

(34:22):
exculpatory statements without names attached to them. So if you're following,
that makes the statements useless for cross examination. How are
they supposed to be able to impeach witness if they
couldn't present an initial statement in which they had denied
Keith's involvement, right, Like, Hey, you're saying this now, what

(34:44):
about this first statement you gave where you're like, no,
Keith had nothing to do with And then you can't
even like follow up and investigate or you know, look
for a rebuttal witness. Right, That's what was allowed to happen.
The exculpatory statements were just read into the record without
an idea identity attached, and then forty three names were
read into the record as potential sources for those statements,

(35:06):
all of whom refused to cooperate with Keith's defense team
because they all had something to lose. It was only
after other trials or guilty plea proceedings that those statements
became available with the names attached, allowing Keith's appellat attorney
to do the analysis that could and should have been
done in preparation for Keith's trial, placing the statements with

(35:28):
their corresponding witnesses along with the context of what was
received in exchange for going along with the state's narrative.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
Almost all of the testifying witnesses followed the same arc.
Initially they were not naming Keith Lamar or even affirmatively
saying that Keith was not involved, and then over time
as they gave more statements, started saying that Keith was
involved and Keith.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Was the leader of the desk squad.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
You know that suspicious to say the least. And then
almost all the witnesses to some degree also received deals
and have credibility issues.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
So let's talk about those witnesses.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
The testifying witnesses against Keith were Robert Bass, Anthony Walker,
Thomas Taylor, Stacy Gordon, Lewis Jones, Ricky Rutherford, and Michael Childers.
Many of the witnesses were transferred to Oakwood, which was
a much more favorable facility for incarcerated people. Even the

(36:33):
witnesses themselves testified that the guards were catering to their needs,
giving them unlimited supplies of cigarettes, unlimited supplies of the canteen,
extra visitation jobs, and free range of movements.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
But more importantly, almost all of those testifying witnesses had
everything to gain. I mean, some of them had flat
out admitted to killing one or more of the victims,
and then they just shifted blame ont to Keith, saying
that he made made them do it and being in
this better situation together. The witnesses were also able to coordinate.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
They went over script Mark Pete ma a Thanksgiving dinner
with these prisoners. They had movies. They had to free
Runner the commissary, and he's saying witnesses would carry from
trow to trout.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
So Keith was charged with four murders from L Block
Darryl de Pina, Bruce Vitali, William Sveetti, and Albert Steano.
But let's start with the one from K Block, Dennis Weaver.
Keith told the story of how he was piled into
this cell on K Block with nine other guys when
a Sunni Muslim named William bowing aka Shabaz killed a

(37:37):
man named Dennis Weaver along with two others, Ricky Rutherford
and Michael Childers, who ended up testifying that Keith had
told them to do it.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
We've been able to find Alfa Davis from one of
the Muslims who was in the pot with William Bowley
after Dennis was killed and he encouraged William Bowley to
say listen, just just say he made you do it,
and they already said she'd buy him about the Alesid
and I.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
Have that two thousand and five AFFI davit right here
from Abdul Mohammed Sadik, who said that he had been
previously threatened by Dennis Weaver. And he continued in the
affidavit talking about the time he spent in the same
style with William Bowling in the aftermath of the riot.
Now Michael Childers was in a nearby cell as well.
Sadik said that Shabbaz admitted to killing Weaver out of

(38:22):
loyalty to him, a fellow Muslim whose life had been
threatened by Weaver, a non Muslim. Sadiq told Bowling, and
this is a direct quote, that he should join with
Childers and blame Lamar for the order since Lamar was
a non Muslim and he was being seen as a
ringleader for other inmate murders. Anyway, end quote.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
And William Bowling when it came down to testified.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Neil Drau, he refused to go right, but Michael Childers
and Ricky Rutherford did testify. Kegan, what can you tell
us about these two.

Speaker 4 (38:53):
Yeah, So Ricky testified that Keith was the leader of
the death squad, that Keith told him to tie up
Weaver and that he did it, and then Keith told
Childers to kill Weaver, which Childers did. Rutherford was transferred
to Oakwood, where they were given preferential treatment, and was
charged with an aggravated murder, but the charge was reduced
to involuntary manslaughter and he received five to twenty five years,

(39:17):
but that was sort of intentionally meant not to increase
the time that he would serve. The state also promised
to let his cooperation be known to the parole board,
provide him with counsel for his appearance for the parole board,
and make all of the transcripts available to him.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
So Rutherford admitted participating in Dennis Weaver's murder, completely remove
William Bowling from the equation, and then for the small
price of saying Keith made us do it, he received
a better prison assignment and effectively no additional sentence for
the murder.

Speaker 4 (39:48):
In addition, Rutherford is one of a couple testifying witnesses
who suffered severe mental illness auditory, visual and command hallucinations,
but those records were never turned over to the defense.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Jeez Christ. Okay, so what about Childers.

Speaker 4 (40:02):
Michael Childers first said that other incarcerated people tied Weaver up,
and he said that he was told to kill Weaver,
but when he went to do so, Weaver was already dead.
Then ultimately he admitted to killing Weaver, but said that
Keith told him to do so. Again, he was charged
with murder but pled to involuntary manslaughter. Childers is another
witness who was severely mentally ill. Medical records showed that

(40:25):
he suffered hallucinations, and those medical records were not turned
over the defence, so the defense could not argue to
the jury that this person was not a credible witness.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
And again, the mental illness was the least of the
credibility issues. Childers got a huge break and sentencing. Instead
of murder, which is a capital event, involuntary manslaughter, which
is what he was charged with in Ohio, means three
to eleven years. You can see that's a deal. Well,
he certainly didn't want to refuse all for the low

(40:55):
low price of blaming Keith for his own actions, alleging
that he gave the order like some sort of prison
gang leader like Anthony the Bell or Stacy Gordon of
the Black Gangster Disciples for example. Now, Stacy Gordon actually
testified against Keith.

Speaker 4 (41:10):
Yeah, so Stacy Gordon was one of the shot callers
for the Black Gangster Disciples, is my understanding. He plainly
admitted to helping to plan the uprising and to killing
another incarcerated person, and yet was never charged for that.
He was charged with assault on a corrections officer, but
pled out and received three to five years to run

(41:31):
concurrent with the sentence he was already serving. So he
effectively sarned no time for this assault during an uprising
that he admitted to planning.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
So he got no time for either the assault or
the murder. Wow, all right, So what testimony did he
give in exchange for this phenomenal sweetheart deal that.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
He got at trial? You know, Stacy Gordon is probably
one of the more damning witnesses, and he describes Keith
as the leader of the death squad. Again, that's sort
of suspicious because other people identify Stacy Gordon as the
person doing a lot of the things that Keith Lamar
was ultimately picked for doing, which was opening the cells

(42:12):
that the alleged snitches were caged in, which was in
everybody's narrative, including the state's narrative, the step taken to
lead to their executions. And it is in just direct
contradiction to sworn testimony that he gave at his own
guilty plea for the assault on the corrections officer where
he was asked if he saw Keith in L six

(42:33):
and said no.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
So it sounds like he subbed Keith in for himself
in the state's narrative at Keith's trial, and then the
rest of the witnesses appear to serve that goal. A
guy named Robert Bass testified in addition to three more
men who all appeared to have been part of the
death squad, Lewis Jones, Anthony Walker, and Thomas Taylor. So
let's start with Robert Bass.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
For Robert Bass, in particular, he did not bring up
Keith's name on his own. The transcript shows that one
of the interviewing troopers brought up Keith's name and then
Robert Bass started saying it back to the interviewer. And
this is like a classic example of a fed fact
that you know, Bass didn't actually testify as seeing anyone

(43:17):
assaulted or killed, but he said that Keith was in
L six, that Keith had a T shirt over his head,
but was sure it was him. He also himself admitted
to removing dead bodies from L six, but was never
charged with any crime.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
He was somebody who I was on speaking terms for,
you know, doing a rise. He failed down staffs. He
was drunk or something knocked all his teeth out. When
he came to testify on he had all brand new
false teeth. I mean he looked twenty years younger. You know,
he looked at me. One of the guys had looked
at the table. One of the I'm sorry he got
he got released.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
He got early release, man, So he got his teeth
fixed as well as an early release in exchange for
some super vague testimonies saying that your head was covered
but somehow he knew it was you. Maybe he was
trying to make himself impeachable, sounds that way, But okay,
four down, three to go. Let's move on to Lewis Jones,
Anthony Walker, and Thomas Taylor. And we're going to do

(44:15):
this by going victim to victim a l block. Bruce Vitali,
William Sveetty, Albert Steano, and Darryl Depina.

Speaker 4 (44:22):
For Darryl Depina, you know, there were other incarcerated people
who made statements saying that Lewis Jones was the person
who killed Darryl Dupina. Lewis jones statements changed dramatically over time.
He admitted to being a part of the Desk Squad
and listed everyone else involved, which is a sort of
rare statement for someone to give off the bat for
an incarcerated person, but he didn't name Keith. He said

(44:45):
that the group was led by a black Muslim, Lamar
was not a black Muslim, and then ultimately you know
testified that Lamar was the leader of the Desk Squad.
Other incarcerated people identified Jones as being involved in not
just the murder of Darryl Depina, but Bruce Fatale. And
despite that, despite him admitting that he was a member
of the death Squad and knew everyone else involved and

(45:07):
being implicated in two murders, he was never charged in
connection with the uprising in any way.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Wow, he named everybody in the death Squad in his
first interview and excluded Keith, information that was hidden by
the state. And then for his testimony, he was transferred
to Oakwood and was not charged for two murders, Darryl
Topina and Bruce Fatally. And I understand that another individual,
Aaron Jefferson, was named along with Lewis Jones for Daryldpina,

(45:34):
and then there were additional people named in connection with
Bruce Fatali's death.

Speaker 4 (45:38):
Yeah, so with Bruce Fatale, there is not strong and
credible evidence against Keith. However, there are other statements in
the record that two other incarcerated people who are the
actual people who killed Bruce, who were not charged with
this crime.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Now, let's move on to the murder of William Speeddy.

Speaker 4 (45:54):
A person named Eric Curti later admitted and pled guilty
to this had to give a call a queen about
the details of the murder that had to be accepted
by the court, and he specifically said that Keith was
not involved. That would seem to be pretty important exculpatory
evidence that should be a basis for evers in this conviction,
but the courts didn't see it that way.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
And in addition to Gertie, there were court filings naming
three other individuals in Stetti's murder, Fred Frakes, Roger Snodgrass,
and Brian Eskridge. Yet none of those alternative suspects were
known to the jury or the defense, So moving on
to Albert Steiano for this one, the last two witnesses,
Anthony Walker and Thomas Taylor kind of tag teamed this one. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
Walker initially told investigators that a number of people who
participated in the beatings and murders in l Block, but
said that Keith was not present. Ultimately, however, he said
that Keith was involved, and so he just switched in
Keith for other people in his narrative and ultimately testified
that Keith was the leader of the desk squad. Keith
handed someone about and told him too, when he had
earlier said that was someone else entirely.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
So this is another time Keith was specifically excluded, but
the state with help from the defense, and then Walker
joined the crowd, swapping in Keith for the actual assailants
in exchange for no charges for his own actions. Then
Thomas Taylor testified to receiving and using the bat that
Walker mentioned.

Speaker 4 (47:14):
So Thomas Taylor admitted to murdering Siano. He said that
he alone hit the victim over the head with the
bat repeatedly until the bat cracked, but he said that
Keith told him to. And yet Taylor was able to
plead to invol terry manslaughter while Keith received a capital
murder charge and conviction.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
Hayn were made about eight statements. In his first three
statements he was now committal. The four statement he said
he saw Keith Lamar is Stacy Gordon, he said Gordon
is leader in the di squad and being distilled statement
Stacy Gordon completely disappears from Nevertiel because state Gordon too,
have now become a space witness.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
So it appears through the evolution of Taylor's statements one
could surmise that perhaps he was told to protect Stacy
Gordon while throwing Keith Lamar under the bus meant for
the actual murderers. So, with this pile up of witnesses
and no meaningful way to cross examine and impeach them,
all Keith's defense could do was present alibi witnesses. In

(48:15):
addition to those five men who had corroborated Keith's story
that he was out in the yard. Keith should have
had the clothes and the boots that he was wearing
when everyone else in the Yard, and he were moved
into K Block and stripped naked. If he was involved
in the murders on L Block, then there should have
been some sort of biological evidence to corroborate or dispel

(48:39):
his alleged involvement. But all that evidence was burned, along
with a piece of paper that Keith was alleged to
have stuffed down Dennis Weaver's throat. So without that or
any of the impeaching evidence that we laid out here today,
the jury was left to take the state's witnesses at
face value, with no physical evidence to corroborate any of it.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
Because they did at one point roll a whole bunch
of wheelbarrows and shovels and fires stinguishers and hammers and
shanks and all this shit wrapped in plastic as if
they had did a meticulous investigation. Sit didn't have anything
to do with anything, you know, But no one was
there to see that throughout the whole trial was last
a month. There was no one in the gallery, you know,

(49:26):
it was empty, and story fire m guilty. I went
back to Lucasfield for money, and I came back from
centising and I had you know, writtenly memorized this little
speech that I wanted to say, and I came out
into the courtroom. Man, it was about three hundred white
people standing in there and suits mann in the easter class,
I mean, and it was standing room only. And I

(49:48):
hadn't seen iconic pictures in the eighteen hundred and seventeen
hundreds of black people being lynched, and you had this
big gathering, big swarm of white people standing around with ties. Oh,
it's the same thing. And when I seen them pictures
a couple of years later, I knew I've seen that before.
I said, you know, I witness that. I was a

(50:08):
part of that. I know what that is. That's a
lest one. The most important thing I've learned is that

(50:32):
who I am is more important than what I am.
And if I am who I say I am, it
it doesn't really matter where I am. I can still
be who I am. I mean, I'm in the fucked
up situation. There's no way to sugarcoat that. After decide
to taking five four all these years. But I am
not the situation. The situation is fucked up. I'm not
fucked up. I make sure that I'm not fucked up.

(50:53):
I have a routine. I've learned how to meditate. When
I was in my early twenties and I was lucky Jason,
I met and was meant to buy some very remarkable
being here in prison five secrets. One was my boxing coach,
and the other guy named that he was lack, a philosopher, poet,
you know, kind of turned me on to a lot
of literature that was like a therapist as well, can

(51:14):
I help me deal with some of the trauma. And
then when I ride on death Row, I met another
older guy named Snoop who I referenced in the music
in the album that we put out, the Field first album.
You know, he's been to us, showed me how to
do yoga, how to actually live. You know, I was
able to pursue myself even in this little space. You know,
I start developing my inner life. You know, I've rich

(51:36):
in the life. I've read, you know, close two thousand.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
Books, man, and I have to ask, of the close
to two thousand books that you've read, which one had
the most profound impact on you.

Speaker 3 (51:46):
Well, one of the things that I was given to
understand that if I wanted to change my situation, I
had to learn how to write my mind. So I
dropped out of school in tenth grade, and so one
of the books that I read that taught me how
to write was Richard Wright's Black Boy. Read that book
every day for you know, a few years. I was
reading with the intent of learning how to write, and
so reading that is how I ultimately became a writer

(52:09):
myself and wrote my memoir Condemned was chronical, you know,
my journey through the criminal justice system on death row.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
This is the most important part of the story in
my opinion. Right, of course, I'm talking about your poetry,
your performances, music writing. Wrote Condemned, as I understand it,
in solitary confinement on a typewriter a few pages at
a time, right, and dictated it every morning by telephone
to somebody who transcribed each and every word. You founded

(52:39):
a literacy program, learned to play chess, yoga, meditation. I mean,
I think most people are listening and trying to think
which people from their life, you know, friend, circle has
accomplished what you've accomplished.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
That I'm doing the same that you are trying to
do a you know anybody else trying to do trying
to make the most out of your one and only
life and the circumstances are different, yes, but the goal
is to say to do something right just with my life.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Tell us what is Native Sons. That's a literacy program
that you founded.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Yeah, Eliza, you know Richard Wright, as I said, Man
had a big impact on my life, not just on
my writing, but just somehow to engage with life. And
I just thought that if I had read that book
when I was thirteen in the juvenile that it probably
would have changed something in terms of my self concept

(53:33):
and how I look at life. And so I just
started reading with high school students in the inner cities
here in Ohio and New York City, and it's been
really really a reward and experience.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Yeah, it's incredible. It's kind of like you're reaching back
almost like trying to help your younger self. And you've
been doing that and so much more with one of
the unsung heroes of your story, Amy Gordeev. She helps
facilitate the literacy program. Event She's the person that transcribed
your memoir Condemned over the phone, as well as advocated

(54:04):
for you to us and Leah Rothman of The Real
Killer podcast. She's also the person that facilitates what you
mentioned earlier, and I'm talking about Freedom First, which started
as a concert series with New York based jazz musicians
and you on the phone from death Row sharing poetry
and spoken word. You've done shows literally, like it seems like,

(54:25):
all over the world from your cell. It's really incredible
what you've been able to accomplish.

Speaker 3 (54:31):
You know, because I have time. You know, these people
have given me time, you know, given me really a
gift of time.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
It's truly amazing to hear your perspective, and I believe
I could come around to it being a gift if
not for the fact that you have to also spend
that gift of time fighting for your freedom and your life,
your very life. So let's turn to your appeals. There
were a number of potential constitutional violations, like whether or

(54:59):
not some jurors were excluded due to racial bias, but
the main issue was and is, the withholding of exculpatory evidence.
But this issue is kind of split into two parts.
The first whether or not the way in which the
information that was shared with the defense that trial constituted
or Brady violation, the landmark Supreme Court case that ruled

(55:20):
that the state must turn over all evidence that might
exonerate the defendant. And if you remember, the judge read
statement summaries detached from their sources.

Speaker 4 (55:29):
The appellate court said these statements were turned over. That
ignores the fact that they were turned over in such
a way that they couldn't satisfy the very basic premise
of Brady, that they're turned over in a way to
defend yourself.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Right, how was he supposed to defend himself with these
sort of phantom statements with no names attached. So how
did the ruling get around that obviously clearly logical conclusion.

Speaker 4 (55:53):
They said that they weren't exculpatory, which sort of follows
the prosecutor's very narrow defence of Brady, which is that
they weren't exculpatory because they said that other people did it,
but they didn't say that Keith didn't do it.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Which is patently ridiculous. There were plenty of people in
that prison eight hundred and nineteen, to be exact, and
they weren't specifically excluded either. And so what did the
court say to address that?

Speaker 4 (56:18):
They said it wasn't material under Brady, and material under
Brady is effectively if it wouldn't have changed the outcome
of trial, then it's not material, and so we don't
need to reverse a conviction based on the fact that
these statements weren't turned over in a usable fashion.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
So that refers to what Pete Meyer and Tiger did
turnover at trial. And then comes the second Brady issue,
the exculpatory evidence that was withheld from the defense and
later discovered by two attorneys who were appointed to handle
Keith's federal appeal, Kate McGarry and David Dawton. Now they
turned up the initial witness statements that we revealed earlier,
and at least two of those satisfy even the very

(56:56):
narrow thread the needle Brady standard that Pete Meyer and
Tiger devised. Anthony Walker and Lewis Jones both named everyone
in the death squad and specifically excluded Keith. And then
there's the statement about Stacy Gordon.

Speaker 4 (57:10):
There were statements from other incarcerated people saying that Gordon
opened the cells that the allegis niches were placed in
and was the leader of the death squad, which is
basically what Keith was convicted of. Gordon himself admitted to
killing another incarcerated person.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
And then was never charged with that murder, but rather
with assault of a corrections officer with a sentence to
run concurrent by the way, with the time he already had.
And then at that assault proceeding Gordon specifically excluded Keith.

Speaker 4 (57:38):
So that is again very clear material Brady evidence.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
But the state courts heard all of that and didn't
think even one juror would have thought it mattered at
the time, even though that's all it takes to change
an outcome a trial exactly.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
I was told not to suspect any release from the
state courts. I thought I will receive once I get
to the federal court. And I'm the only one out
of all the Lucasbill prisoners who were granted every diationary
hearing wove been back in two thousand and seven, I
believe it was, and put Mark.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
Pete Myer on the stand, and this was when he
came clean about the impossibly narrow standard by which they
deemed something exculpatory.

Speaker 4 (58:17):
Right, I mean, it's a it's a strange thing that
the courts did in reviewing those statements, right. They bought
Pete Myer's logic and said that if a statement said
that some people committed the murder but didn't directly exclude Keith,
then it wasn't exculpatory, okay.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
But Pete Meyer and Tiger did withhold statements that were
not absolved by this ridiculous standard, statements that did specifically
exclude Keith. And yet the federal at state courts both
did the same thing, saying that the statements from Anthony Walker,
Lewis Jones, and Stacy Gordon wouldn't have made a difference
at trial. So Keith's habeas was denied in twenty eleven,

(58:59):
as was the in twenty fifteen, and in twenty sixteen,
the Supreme Court denied Sir TIERRAI, refusing to review the
evidence and the lower court's decision. Separately, there's been an
ongoing legal battle over the lethal injection protocol in America. Essentially,
the rest of the world is so disgusted by us
that they've been trying to starve us of the drugs

(59:20):
that were deemed to be quote humane, a ridiculous word
for this, and approved thereby for use in our lethal
injection protocols. I'm talking about sodium diopental or pentobarbital, the
anesthetic I think as the first drug in the three
drug cocktail. By twenty fourteen, states began to run out
of the drug, and so they started looking for alternatives

(59:42):
like medazolam, which then triggered legal challenges from those facing
their death penalty. The thing is with medazzolam. In many cases,
the condemned have suffered and writhed in agony on the
gurney for the better part of an hour, which one
would think would come constitute a violation of the Eighth
Amendment ban on Cruel and Unusual punishment, but our current

(01:00:05):
Supreme Court did not agree. However, this long legal battle
over the injection protocol did have the positive effect of
halting executions, even if only temporarily in the meantime. For Keith,
after his federal habeas was denied, he fired his attorneys
and his case was given to the Tennessee Federal Defenders.
But with medazza LAMB cleared for use by the Supreme

(01:00:26):
Court of the United States, various states that still have
capital punishment began setting execution dates again, including Ohio, which
caused an imminent and very real threat to Keith's life
that has since been averted. And we'll get to that
in a minute. But first let's get to the Tennessee
Federal Defenders.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
The Tennessee Federal Defenders took over the case. They did
successfully get access to additional files that Miapella Council did
not have access to, were now going to be reviewing those.
They were going to attempt to bring an actual innocence claim.
They recognized that it needs to happen in state court first,
but their jurisdiction is limited to federal court, so they

(01:01:04):
were not able to make that motion. So since then,
you know, Keith has needed someone to come in who
would be able to make a motion in state court
to bring in any newly discovered evidence.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
And that's where you and the team at Bell, doc Levine,
and Hoffman come in. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
So David Singleton at the Ohio Justice and Policy Center
is our local council. And then we're also working with
Joshua Jack Jones at Northwestern Law School. We've now gotten
all the materials from the Tennessee Federal Defenders, the process
of digitizing all of that. We have an army of
attorneys and student attorneys now that are going to be
reviewing it at tandem, using the coding system to bubble

(01:01:41):
everything up to get to the attorneys that'll be writing
the brief.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
So there are still some promising legal avenues available along
with the potential for additional exculpatory material that you have already.
And now Governor Dwine has granted Keith a reprieve. It's
cold comfort, but still aim that it ever got this close.
But Keith had a scheduled execution date of November sixteen,

(01:02:06):
twenty twenty three. But now his team has a real
chance to litigate his case, and we are hoping against
hope that justice delayed will not be justice denied. So
what can our audience do to help?

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
And go to my website keithma dot org or follow
me on Facebook Justice MA. Just petition on those various
pages that you can you can sign those submitted to
the government, just to indicate to him how many people
are aware of my situation, who are watching the decisions
that he makes regard of my situation.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
All Right, we're gonna have action steps linked in the bio.
It's important to note that Justice for Keith Lamar is
a nonprofit five oh one c. Three. There will also
be ways that you can delve even deeper into this case,
including another podcast The entire second season of The Real
Killer with journalists and host Leah Roffman. We're also going
to to Keith's book, his upcoming shows, and how you

(01:03:03):
can experience his work and get involved. So with that,
we come to my very favorite part of the show,
closing arguments. First of all, I think each of you,
then I'm going to kick back in my chair, turn
my microphone off, and leave my headphones on, probably close
my eyes, and just listen for anything else you want
to share with me and our incredible audience. So Keegan,

(01:03:26):
on't you go first? Then Keith? You'll think us hop
into the sunset.

Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
Keith is innocent and at minimum he did not receive
a fair trial. He needs to finally get a fair
look at his case by a court. You know, I
think Keith has said it best. He's not asking any
attorney to promise that he will get exonerated. He wants
us to create a document that lays out his story,

(01:03:51):
shows just how many constitutional violations occurred in his trial,
just how much exculpatory evidence there is, and put that
in front of a judge and make a judge look
at all of that and say we're going to put
you to death. Anyway, Keith wants his story out there.
He wants, if he's executed, this to be something that

(01:04:13):
people look back on and say, look, that shows just
how inhuman this system was, just how doomed this civilization was,
that it would put people to death based on trials
that were egregiously unfair. And I think that Keith's trial
was egregiously unfair, and we're coming in to try to
write that. Unfortunately, our only method of writing that is

(01:04:34):
to find new evidence outside of that trial, get back
into court, exonerate Keith and Stay's execution.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
As I'm talking about all this shit, it's a lot
too man, you know it kind of you know, if
you if you didn't have a statement, if they pull
away all the statements like they do, pull away all
the cisical evidence, no one would believe his story. But
lo and below this mounted evidence, you know, all this shit.
So for no other reason, the world want to know.
This is what happened to me, what they did to me.

(01:05:02):
And it might be, you know, I might find myself
staff to a guaranty, but it won't be because I
put to death Row and laid down and watch their
color tethers. This it won't be because I sat down
in that cell and didn't opened up a legal book,
that I didn't do everything that I possibly could in
furtherance of my own life. And it won't be because
the public didn't know about what it did. But that's

(01:05:22):
what this podcast is about, that's what the book is about,
that's what the documentary about. That's all what that's all about.
It won't be able to call this justice now. I
might not be drifting to prevent them from executing me.
These people have been killing, they're good at that, they're
assisting at executing people, lenching people, and I would join
the ranks of my ancestors. That's how I look at that,

(01:05:44):
and shit that that happened. I'm doing everything to prevent
that from happen, you know, but one thing for so
they won't be able to call this justice though, And
that's my goal. And so I've been retrying my case
and to call a public opinion. And it's a hard
sale until you read the evidence. You know, if you
haven't right there in your hand, you know, I didn't
have that jury didn't see that, not that it would

(01:06:05):
have made a difference, But we live in a different
era now and I'm hoping that people in the day's era,
after seeing George Joy and regarded Breonna Taylor, so on
and so forth, that they would, you know, responditionally to
this evidence and not say that it doesn't mean anything,
because obviously I came to prison that did something with

(01:06:27):
my life. I've rehabilitated myself and that that's what this
was about, and I have done that. I'm a perfect
unity for redemps. We all have to be given a
chance to learn from our mistakes and become a benefit
to our communities and whatnot. I can do that if
given a chance, if that's what we say, we truly
are about not dedicated the past two decades of my

(01:06:48):
life mensuring young people in the same situation I was
in when I was thirteen years old, and for knowing
since my bid hasn't got any soffer because of these
things I've been doing. I'm doing because it's in my heart, student,
because I had a recognition that this is what I'm
supposed to be doing with my life in spite of
opposed shit that happened to me.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. You can listen
to this and all the lava for good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kliber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time

(01:07:33):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#585 Jason Flom with Keith LaMar