Petition to FREE Wrongfully Convicted Death-Row Prisoner Keith LaMar
Petition to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine: FREE Keith LaMar, Wrongfully Convicted Death-Row PrisonerWe are petitioning Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio to intervene NOW and release Keith LaMar, who is scheduled to be executed November 16, 2023. Twenty-eight years of hiding the State of Ohio's deception is LONG ENOUGH! Keith LaMar is INNOCENT. He was deprived of a fair trial when prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence, including eyewitness statements and confessions that PROVE Keith LaMar did NOT commit the crimes that led him to death row. In fact, there is ZERO forensic (DNA) or physical evidence connecting him to ANY of his charges; only the inconsistent testimony of PAID JAILHOUSE INFORMANTS secured Keith's conviction by an ALL-WHITE jury and judge. Justice was NOT served, and we, the public, will not stand by and watch another innocent Black man be executed in our (the taxpayers') names. This is not the Ohio, United States of America, or world within which we wish to live. Based on recommendations set forth by the 2011 Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio's Death Penalty–a body convened by the Ohio Supreme Court–we now call on Governor DeWine to release Keith. After all, it is this independent task force, made up of retired judges, attorneys, and college professors who recommended, "that no one should be indicted, let alone sentenced to death, based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of jailhouse informants." Why, then, should we accept Keith LaMar's death sentence? We do not! Throughout his 28 continuous years of torture in solitary confinement (no matter decades of good behavior), Keith has endured brutal beatings, deprivation, humiliation, starvation, and dehumanization. And, yet, he has managed to find a way to project light into an otherwise dark world, overcoming all attempts by a hostile penal system to break his spirit. Indeed, he continues to fight every day to grow and thrive, spreading love and human decency at every opportunity. He has even started his own literacy program (www.nativesonsliteracy.org) for at-risk youth from prison, and generously gives countless hours to the task of helping juveniles avoid the pitfalls he knew all too well growing up poor and Black. Keith is a teacher in the truest sense of the word, uplifting all types of people who need hope. He has served his original sentence more than abundantly, and deserves to go home to his family and community, who desperately need and love him. In addition to signing this petition, you can make an enormous difference with even a small donation toward Keith's Legal Defense Fund; while we call upon and hope Governor Dewine will do the right thing, we are losing precious time every day. Our most urgent need is to hire attorneys who will fight earnestly for Keith in these most crucial final months. Getting back in court for a retrial (which he WILL WIN if all our uncovered/previously hidden evidence is able to be presented) is going to take BIG money, and the only way to accomplish this is TOGETHER. Please donate what you are able to for Keith's Legal Defense Fund, knowing that your effort just might save his life. That is REAL TALK. We thank you in advance. Please go to: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/justice-for-keith-lamar-ldf-1/Help us spread the word! Please follow us and share Keith LaMar's story on your social media: Twitter: @FreeKeithLaMar Facebook: @justiceforkeithlamar Instagram: @justiceforkeithlamar Hashtags: #justiceforkeithlamar #loveistheonlyfreedom Keith is still breathing. Let's not wait for him to become a hashtag! What Happened to Keith? In 1989, Keith LaMar (aka Bomani Shakur) came to prison at age 19. He had been living in Cleveland, Ohio, where he sold drugs as a means of survival in the crack-infested streets he knew as home. On a day that would forever change his life, Keith was robbed at gunpoint and exchanged gunfire with his robbers. He was shot in his legs and hit one of the other men in the chest. That young man, a childhood friend, died. Keith believes in truth and justice and was sentenced to prison for 17 years-to-life. Six years later, while attempting to put together the broken pieces of his life at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, Keith LaMar was once again ruled guilty, this time by an all-white jury in an all-white county in southern Ohio. To this day, Keith maintains his innocence of crimes he was framed for by the State of Ohio, crimes he can prove he did not commit during the 1993 Lucasville Prison Uprising at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. In spite of his innocence, Keith continues to be held indefinitely in solitary confinement in a steel cage no larger than a closet, where he has spent the past two and a half decades. In all this time, he has not been able to see or touch grass or feel the wind blow against his skin. For sixteen of those years, Keith wasn't even allowed to touch a loved one until his 2011 hunger strike finally afforded him access to semi-contact visits (thick glass separation with just a small hole). It would be eighteen years in all until he could hug his family again when full-contact visits were granted. In spite of being made to suffer inhumane conditions these three decades, Keith continues to pour love and knowledge on friends and strangers alike, inspiring them to find ways to live their lives with purpose. He has founded the Native Sons Literacy Project to help kids caught up in the school-to-prison pipeline discover that reading will open doors they never could imagine. Through his efforts, Keith has been able to get hundreds of meaningful books in the hands of at-risk juveniles. He exchanges calls and letters with high school and college classes, inspiring people to live their most meaningful lives while they can. Keith LaMar’s is a story about racialized injustice, State corruption, struggle, perseverance and truth. He has laid it all out in Condemned, a soulful, fiery, and captivating book. In it, he traces how the prosecutors fabricated a case against him, then goes on to dismantle their lies by highlighting their inconsistencies. Keith shows clearly how his Constitutional rights were violated by the State of Ohio's willful withholding of evidence favorable to his defense. Most importantly, he compels readers to consider their place within the larger social system, inviting those who would stand on the side of social justice to join him, not just on his behalf, but also for the countless nameless, faceless people caught up in the struggle for humanity. Order Condemned here: www.keithlamar.org/condemned A documentary film that focuses on the State’s intentional railroading of Keith LaMar was made available online October 2014. In just 36 short minutes, the issues about what happened in Keith's legal case are illuminated. The film was updated in 2019 and can be viewed by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4iOQ24Jamk