Keith Davis, Jr., convicted four times for murder, is acquitted by Baltimore prosecutors.
On Friday, all of the accusations brought against Keith Davis Jr. in the city of Baltimore’s two separate criminal cases against him were dropped.
Davis has been put on trial for the homicide of a security guard a total of four times. Ivan Bates, who was just sworn in as the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City, advocated for dropping the charges against Davis throughout his campaign last year.
To justify the firing, he referred to “prosecutorial mistakes” made by Marilyn Mosby, his immediate predecessor.
Bates stated, “today’s dismissal is about the prosecutorial missteps of my predecessor in her pursuit of a conviction at all costs.”
“As State’s Attorney, I must ensure justice for all, not just the victim, but also the accused,” Bates said. “Today’s dismissal is about the prosecutorial missteps of my predecessor.” Bates excused himself from participating in the review process since he had discussed the issue while campaigning.
Instead, Deputy State’s Attorney Thomas Donnelly was the one who looked over the case. According to Donnely, how the allegations brought against Davis were handled raised “severe issues surrounding the integrity and legitimacy of any future prosecution of Mr. Davis.”
The particulars of how the case would be handled were not immediately apparent. Davis, now 31, was scheduled to stand trial for the seventh time in connection with the assassination of a Pimlico security officer in 2015.
Both of these cases resulted in hung juries. The other resulted in a conviction that was overturned at a later date. He has consistently asserted that the allegations against him are false.
To secure his release, his wife, Kelly Davis, and several social justice organizations have organized protests and financed mobile billboards.
After his most recent conviction was reversed, Mosby’s office brought new charges against him, accusing him of stabbing a fellow inmate the previous year and charging him with attempted murder and assault.
The morning of the murder, police chased Davis into an auto repair shop in Northwest Baltimore as part of an investigation into an unrelated attempted robbery.
They fired dozens of shots, striking him three times and hitting him in the face on one occasion. Even though he had been found not guilty of the armed robbery, the police eventually charged him with the murder of security guard Kevin Jones. Jones was working security at the Pimlico race track on the morning of June 7, 2015, when the incident occurred.
In the parking lot of the place where he worked, he took 11 bullets to the body. The circumstantial evidence suggests that Davis was in the area at the time of the shooting; however, there is no DNA evidence to support his claim that he was the perpetrator.
His wife confirmed to WJZ in 2021 that she knew he was not the one who pulled the trigger. On Friday, Kelly Davis sent out a celebratory tweet about the news, in which she thanked her supporters and Ivan Bates.
She said, “To an overwhelming amount of community, near or far, I want to say thank you for your support and the myriad ways in which you all showed up and gave your time, energy, and unwavering support.”
“Thank you for your support and the myriad ways you all showed up and gave your time, energy, and unwavering support,” she said.
“Without you, we never would have been able to accomplish this; we had faith that we could prevail, and we did!” On Thursday, the Director of Special Litigation at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, Debbie Levi, posted a picture on Twitter that showed Davis beaming while riding in the back seat of a car.