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A man who served nearly 15 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit is suing Scott County and the officials who investigated the murder.
Joshua C. Kezer was released from the Jefferson City Correction Center a day after Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan exonerated him in February. Kezer had been convicted in 1994 of the murder of Angela Mischelle Lawless and sentenced to 60 years in state prison.
On Monday, Kezer filed a civil rights lawsuit against William F. Ferrell, the Scott County sheriff from January 1977 until January 2005; and Brenda Schiwitz, a deputy under Ferrell and the lead investigator of the murder of Lawless.
Joshua Kezer and his mother, Joni, walk away from the Jefferson City Correction Facility after his exoneration in February. Kezer, who spent almost half of his life in prison for the murder of Angela Mischelle Lawless, is suing Scott County and the officials who investigated the murder. Photo by Julie Smith
Not named as a defendant was former U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof, who led the prosecution’s case against Kezer in 1994.
The lawsuit specifically excludes Hulshof, then an assistant attorney general, and Christy Baker-Neal, a former Scott County prosecutor, from liability, stating that, “based on their public statements since Kezer’s exoneration,” they weren’t aware of certain documents that cast doubt on Kezer’s guilt.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, attorney fees and costs.
A state law allows wrongfully convicted individuals to apply for compensation, but it only affects those exonerated by DNA evidence, according to Kezer’s lawyer, Charles Weiss. He declined to comment further on the lawsuit.
Weiss, a partner in Bryan Cave’s St. Louis office, spearheaded the effort to exonerate Kezer. Stephen R. Snodgrass, also of Bryan Cave, is also working on Kezer’s lawsuit.
Ferrell said Tuesday he hadn’t seen the lawsuit and would not comment on it. Schiwitz did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
Scott County Presiding Commissioner Jamie Burger works from his county office on Tuesday and Thursday mornings only. The woman who answered a phone call placed to Burger said she would relay a message to the officeholder. Burger did not call back by press time.
In his February order, Callahan blasted the actions of investigators and prosecutors for failing to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense and for misrepresenting evidence at trial.
“There is little about this case which recommends our criminal justice system,” Callahan wrote. “The system failed in the investigative and charging stage, it failed at trial, it failed at the post trial review, and it failed during the appellate process.”
The case against Kezer was based on a witness’s identification of Kezer as a man he had seen near the murder scene, driving a white car and looking for gas as well as on four jailhouse snitches in the Cape Girardeau County Jail, the lawsuit says. But the accounts of these witnesses were inconsistent with the facts of the case, the suit alleges.
The jailhouse snitches received either reduced sentences or reduced charges after implicating Kezer, the lawsuit says. Some of the inmates recanted their stories, citing intimidation on the part of law enforcement, although some later retracted their recanted stories. The lawsuit also alleges there were inconsistencies between the witnesses’ trial testimony and their initial accounts of the murder.
In addition, the witness who identified Kezer, Mark Abbott, described the man as possibly Hispanic, Mexican, black or half African-American. Kezer, the suit says, is a light-complexioned white man. Ferrell and Schiwitz suppressed Abbott’s description of the man as “not white” – not disclosing it to either prosecutors or the defense, the suit says.
A report by Lt. Bobby Wooten, of the Scott County Police Department, detailed an interview in which Abbott told Wooten a man named Ray Ring was the one driving the white car and looking for gas. That report wasn’t disclosed to prosecutors or defense counsel, the lawsuit alleges.
The chief deputy of Scott County, Tom Beardslee, considered Abbott and/or his identical twin brother, Matt Abbott, to be suspects in the case, the suit alleges. One of the brothers, who identified himself as Matt Abbott, reported to the sheriff’s department in Benton, Mo., that he had found the body, Kezer alleges. The lawsuit also cites “inconsistent and implausible statements” made by Mark Abbott in early interviews.
Schiwitz’s handwritten notes concerning Beardslee’s suspicions weren’t disclosed to the defense, the suit says. Schiwitz herself was suspicious of Abbott, the suit says, citing other undisclosed notes she had taken. But she testified at trial that Abbott had never been a suspect, the lawsuit states.
No physical evidence linked Kezer to the murder, and an FBI analysis concluded it was not Kezer’s blood that was found underneath Lawless’ fingernails, the lawsuit says. In addition, several defense witnesses testified Kezer was in Kankakee, Ill., 350 miles north of Benton, where the murder occurred, the lawsuit says. One of these witnesses said Kezer came by her house shortly before midnight on Nov. 7, 1992, less than two hours before Lawless was murdered, the suit says.
Count I of the lawsuit alleges the defendants suppressed material exculpatory evidence, and Count II alleges they wrongfully arrested Kezer and procured and promoted unreliable and false evidence.
On Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lewis M. Blanton recused himself from the case.
The case is Kezer v. Ferrell et al., 1:09-cv-109.
