Categories | Health & Medicine Article

Defendant In Decade Long Open Case Requests Charges Be Dropped

June 7th, 2017 • Health & Medicine • 2 minute read
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Author Sara E. Teller

Defendant In Decade Long Open Case Requests Charges Be Dropped

A man has been behind bars for a decade.  Circumstances have repeatedly delayed his trial.  Now, he's holding the state responsible and asking to be set free.  However, whether the state is responsible for the delay comes down to the specifics of the case and reasons for push back.A motion filed by attorney Thomas Goggans on behalf of this client Kharon Davis is asking a judge to remove a homicide charge due to violation of his constitutional right to a speedy trial, since he's spent a decade in confinement.  A Houston County, Alabama, hearing will be held on this week.  The filing claims the court caused "over four years of down time" due to attorney conflicts.  The issue began with Davis' first attorney, Ben Meredith, whose son investigated the case.  Meredith represented Davis at the preliminary hearing ten years ago.  At this hearing, his son was one of the witnesses to testify.  However, the conflict of interest issue wasn't raised until four years later in October 2011.  

Defendant In Decade Long Open Case Requests It Be DroppedImage Courtesy of Houston County Jail

Davis was arrested back in June 2007 in the shooting death of Pete Reaves, along with two other men, and has been held without bond in the Houston County Jail ever since.  He has pleaded not guilty. “Courts have an obligation to investigate into a possible conflict of interest of defense counsel when the potential for conflict is brought to the courts’ attention,” Goggans argued in his motion to dismiss filed in April. He added, "It took over four years for the conflict to addressed and resolved. This delay should not fall upon Davis but upon the government." Prosecutors oppose the motion, citing that some of the delay was caused by Davis' own decisions and the state is not at fault.  "The length of delay in this matter is justifiable and attributable to Davis. Davis has failed to show any purposeful delay on behalf of the state, and he has failed to show how he has been prejudiced by any delay," they wrote in response to the filing.

Sources:

Man Jailed for 10 Years Without Trial Wants Case DismissedKharon Davis, awaiting trial 10 years, wants case dismissed
Sara E. Teller

About Sara E. Teller

Sara is a credited freelance writer, editor, contributor, and essayist, as well as a novelist and poet with nearly twenty years of experience. A seasoned publishing professional, she's worked for newspapers, magazines and book publishers in content digitization, editorial, acquisitions and intellectual property. Sara has been an invited speaker at a Careers in Publishing & Authorship event at Michigan State University and a Reading and Writing Instructor at Sylvan Learning Center. She has an MBA degree with a concentration in Marketing and an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, graduating with a 4.2/4.0 GPA. She is also a member of Chi Sigma Iota and a 2020 recipient of the Donald D. Davis scholarship recognizing social responsibility. Sara is certified in children's book writing, HTML coding and social media marketing. Her fifth book, PTSD: Healing from the Inside Out, was released in September 2019 and is available on Amazon. You can find her others books there, too, including Narcissistic Abuse: A Survival Guide, released in December 2017.

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