A new Baltimore district attorney dropped all charges Friday against a black man who was tried four times for the same murder, freeing him from behind bars and ending a controversial case that has repeatedly raised questions about police and prosecution conduct.
Keith Davis Jr. has been charged with the fatal shooting of Pimlico Race Course security guard Kevin Jones in 2015, after police claimed his gun matched casings from the scene of the shooting. Before arresting Davis, the officers shot him several times, severely wounding him. He survived and has maintained his innocence ever since.
Jerry Jackson / AP
Newly elected Baltimore State Attorney General Evan Bates, who took office Jan. 3, announced Friday that the charges have been dropped.
“Today’s dismissal relates to prosecution errors committed by my predecessor in seeking a conviction at all costs,” Bates said in a press release. “It is my duty to ensure justice for all, not only for the victim but for the accused as well.”
Bates had vowed during his campaign to revisit the case, which his predecessor, Marilyn Mosby, has repeatedly taken to trial. Mosby was defeated in the Democratic primary last year while facing federal perjury charges.
When contacted on Friday, Mosby told The Associated Press that the case “has always been about seeking justice for Kevin Jones and his family.” She declined to give more details.
Jones’ grandmother, Erlene Niles, said she was devastated and saddened by the news.
“You destroyed our family,” she said over the phone. “Kevin gets absolutely no justice – nothing.”
She accused Bates of using the case for political gain, saying she was skeptical that the police would identify another suspect now that Davis was free.
Davis was the first person shot by Baltimore police after the 2015 killing of Freddie Gray, a badly wounded black man in police custody, whose case has sparked protests and civil unrest in Maryland’s largest city amid calls for police reform.
The confluence of the latter factors helped Davis regain his freedom after seven years behind bars, including growing support from activists and Bates’ 2022 election. Bates, a defense attorney, then beat Mosby in the Democratic primary, securing him the November election in the city. Very democratic.
Davis asked for privacy on Friday and has not appeared in public, although he was photographed smiling broadly from inside the car after his release. He celebrated with his supporters, including his wife, Kelly Davis, who has spearheaded a years-long grassroots movement seeking to clear his name.
“I hope people realize that we saw a false conviction in real time — and we didn’t ignore it,” she told the Associated Press. “Keith survived the bullets because that wasn’t the end of his story. It was supposed to be much bigger than that.”
The case has been described as “an indictment of the entire system”.
“Keith is no anomaly,” Kelly Davies added, noting that several other defendants with credible claims of innocence remain behind bars. He’s home now, she said, but “we can’t get these years back that were stolen from us.”
Attorneys for the Maryland Office of Public Defenders, which represented Keith Davis throughout, said Friday’s decision helps restore faith in Baltimore’s justice system.
Maryland public defender Natasha Dartig said Mosby’s handling of the case “contradicts any concept of justice.”
Davis, 31, faced his fourth murder trial in 2019, when a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder — a finding later overturned on appeal in 2021. Two previous trials had ended in mistrials. A third trial resulted in a second-degree murder conviction, which was also overturned.
At the time of his release on Friday, Davis was awaiting a possible fifth trial.
In 2021, after his most recent conviction was overturned, prosecutors filed additional charges against Davis, accusing him of attempted murder in a stabbing nearly a year earlier while behind bars. When these charges were filed, a Baltimore judge found a “presumption of retaliation” behind the allegation. The same judge also held Mosby in contempt of court after finding that she willfully violated a gag order by commenting on the high-profile case on Instagram.
The attempted murder case was also dismissed on Friday.
Jones was shot on June 7, 2015, at Pimlico Track in northeast Baltimore.
Hours after the shooting, an unlicensed taxi driver tipped off a Baltimore police officer in a nearby neighborhood and said someone had tried to rob him at gunpoint. Police identified Davis as the suspect, chased him through the streets and cornered him in a mechanic’s garage. The police then fired at least 33 shots at Davis, hitting him three times, including once in the face.
Authorities said Davis placed a gun on top of the refrigerator he was hiding behind in the garage. But Davis said the gun was placed on him after he was shot by police.
Davis initially went to trial in 2016 for armed robbery. The jury found him not guilty on all counts except for illegal possession of a handgun. About a week later, prosecutors charged him with murder in the Pimlico shooting, citing ballistics testing.
In his announcement on Friday, Bates refrained from declaring Davis innocent. Because he made comments about the issue during the campaign, Bates said, he asked one of his deputies to conduct the formal review.
“It is clear that a blatant disregard for the rules of professional responsibility and the law permeated throughout attempts to prosecute Mr. Davis,” Deputy Attorney General Thomas Donnelly said in a statement.
Baltimore activist Deray McKesson, who celebrated with Kelly Davis and others on Friday, said he became hopeful after Bates’ primary victory, but “it’s not real until it’s real.”
He said many of Davis’ supporters were excited to finally meet him in person.
“Today is a reminder that when you organize, you win,” he told the Associated Press. “It wasn’t easy, but we did it.”
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