After more than 30 years on death row in an Ohio prison, Keith LaMar’s execution was scheduled for November.
“The new execution date has been moved to January 13, 2027,” says a statement from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, basing his decision on “the unwillingness of pharmaceutical suppliers to supply drugs to the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction of Ohio”. .
In April, DeWine had already postponed executions scheduled for August, September and October this year to 2026 for the same reasons. The state has not carried out a death penalty since 2018.
A growing number of pharmaceutical companies are refusing to manufacture the lethal injection administered to death row inmates.
LaMar, 54, was sentenced to death for the murder of five inmates and a prison guard during an April 1993 riot at the prison where he was already serving time. According to him, his trial was riddled with irregularities such as destroying evidence and withholding information that made him innocent.
This African American, who has always denied his guilt in the deaths, has spent most of the past 30 years in solitary confinement awaiting execution in an Ohio maximum security prison.
“Three years can pass in the blink of an eye, so let’s redouble our efforts, our energy to end this madness once and for all,” LaMar said in a message to AFP, thanking those who supported him. and instilled in him “the faith and conviction that even better things are possible”.
LaMar has been in prison since he was 19 for the murder of a friend over a drug dispute in the 1980s. LaMar guarantees that after the riot, prison authorities asked him to charge those responsible in exchange for a reduced sentence, which he refused to do.
LaMar, who has written a book telling his story and claiming his innocence, has fought for his case to be reopened and for a fair trial.
“If you are poor and black in a racist country, you are a poor convict,” he said in an interview with AFP from death row last year.
There have been turmoil in his case for the past two years. Alongside a team of lawyers trying to reopen the lawsuit, a group of jazz musicians — the music that saved him from loneliness — has been campaigning to demand “Justice for Leith LaMar.”
Using a phone on death row, LaMar recorded an album with the Spanish band Albert Marqués and participated in several concerts the group performed in countries such as Spain, France, Chile, and in various cities in the United States, as another member of the group. .
“May we keep asking for justice, we are almost there,” LaMar says in his message of hope.
Source: DN
