Wrongful Conviction of Joshua Kezer
A Manifest Injustice Which Must Be Corrected
Joshua C. Kezer was convicted of the 1992 murder of Mischelle Lawless on flimsy, highly questionable circumstantial evidence. There was no
physical evidence linking him to the crime, and the physical evidence
available excluded him. There was DNA from scrapings taken from beneath the fingernails of Mischelle Lawless, but DNA testing excluded Josh Kezer as the donor. Recent, more sophisticated testing has continued to exclude him. There were numerous fingerprints at the crime scene. None were Josh Kezer’s. There was no credible evidence that he had ever met or even known of Mischelle Lawless. Moreover, he was 17 at the time, did not own a car, and was living hundreds of miles away in Kankakee, Illinois; and several
witnesses testified he was in Kankakee at the time of the murder.
Now, there is new-found evidence obtained after Josh Kezer’s conviction, some of it suppressed by the State in violation of his due process rights, which refutes even the questionable circumstantial evidence on which the conviction rests and demonstrates clearly that the prosecution’s star witness framed Josh Kezer in order to cover his own involvement in the crime. This recently discovered evidence, clearly, convincingly and compellingly shows that Josh Kezer is innocent and that others committed the crime.
A Southeast Missourian editorial printed on June 11, 2008 sums up the
ongoing struggle to gain a new trial for Kezer:
The twists keep turning in the Joshua Kezer case. Kezer, in prison on a 1992 conviction for murdering Angela Mischelle Lawless, is trying to get a new trial. Here is what we know:
* Neither DNA evidence nor fingerprints put Kezer at the crime scene.
* The man who picked Kezer out of a photo lineup changed his story several times. Recently, the witness wrote a letter to the Southeast Missourian saying he could have picked the wrong guy.
* A police report was found after the case was reopened by the Scott County sheriff, who was unconvinced
Kezer was guilty. In the report, the same witness names a different suspect as being at the crime scene. The
report, however, was never given to the defense. It was validated by former police officer Bobby Wooten in
2006. In May, Wooten changed his mind when talking to attorney general investigators.
* Other witnesses who came forward implicating Kezer were in prison and looking to reduce their sentences.
Some of those witnesses, who say Kezer confessed to the murder, recanted their testimony, saying the story
was concocted in an attempt to leverage the state.
* The Missouri State Highway Patrol refuses to enter DNA found at the scene into a national database, saying it can’t verify the lab that did the testing.
* Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter was told that ballistics evidence from a New Madrid County murder was
similar to evidence collected in the Lawless murder. A crime lab representative now says the bullets had
different twists and could not have been fired from the same gun. Kezer’s defense has filed a motion to get
the evidence tested. Meanwhile, the public is looking for straight answers. Former law enforcement officers,
prosecutors and lab technicians haven’t been able to give them to date. Witnesses in the case have changed
their stories. We’d like to think that our law-enforcement and judicial officials are all seekers of the truth. If you’re looking for consistency in this case, the only place you’ll find it is in a prison cell in Jefferson City.
To read the numerous recent articles published by the Southeast Missourian go to www.semissourian.com
and search for Joshua Kezer. To read the November 25, 2007 front-page St. Louis Post-Dispatch article go to the
author’s blog site: http://www.thepostonreport.blogspot.com.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” Edmund Burkeg
