1 of 1 execution room at San Quentin State Prison in California, USA. — Photo: Execution Room of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation at San Quentin State Prison, California, USA. — Photo: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
After more than 30 years on death row in an Ohio prison in the United States, Keith LaMar’s execution was scheduled for November 16 but was postponed to January 2027 due to a lack of lethal injections, state authorities announced Thursday. Friday (13).
“The new date for the execution has been postponed to January 13, 2027,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement, basing his decision on “problems with the willingness of pharmaceutical suppliers, the Department of Rehabilitation and Ohio to provide medicines.” “ reasoned.
In April, DeWine had already postponed the executions scheduled for August, September and October of this year to 2026 for the same reasons. The state has not carried out an execution since 2018.
More and more pharmaceutical companies are refusing to manufacture the lethal injection given to death row inmates.
LaMar, 54, was sentenced to death for the killing of five inmates and a prison guard during an April 1993 riot at the prison where he was serving his time. According to him, his trial was fraught with irregularities such as destruction of evidence and concealment of information that rendered him innocent.
The inmate, who has consistently denied responsibility for the deaths, has spent most of the past 30 years in isolation in a maximumsecurity prison in Ohio, awaiting execution.
“Three years can go by in the blink of an eye, so let’s redouble our efforts and energy to solve this madness once and for all to the end,” LaMar said in a message sent to AFP, thanking those who supported him and they gave “the faith and conviction that better things are possible.”
LaMar has been imprisoned since he was 19 for the murder of an old friend in connection with a drug dispute in the 1980s and says prison authorities asked him to report those responsible and get a reduced sentence after the riot he agreed. refused to do so.
LaMar not only wrote a book telling his story and maintained his innocence, but also fought for a retrial and a fair trial.
“If you’re poor and black in a racist country, you’re a bloody poor man,” he said in an AFP interview last year.
His case has taken a turn for the last two years. In addition to a team of attorneys trying to reinstate the lawsuit, a group of jazz musicians launched a campaign to demand “Justice for Keith LaMar.”
Using a phone on death row, LaMar recorded an album with the Spanish band Albert Marqués and, as another member of the group, attended numerous concerts the group gave in countries such as Spain, France, Chile and in several cities in the United States.
“Let’s keep demanding justice, we’re almost there,” LaMar said.