It’s been nearly a decade of agony for Lisa Kravis.
“My family’s experience with the justice system, in general, hasn’t been a good one,” she says. “They continue to re-victimize us.”
She felt that again on Wednesday, after learning the man convicted of first-degree murder in her son’s death had won his appeal – and a new trial.
Her son, Tyler Keizer, was killed in a parking lot shooting on the corner of Falkland and Gottingen streets in Halifax in 2016 as he was being dropped off at a halfway house.
Adam Drake was found guilty by a judge almost eight years later.
Conviction overturned
But in a decision released yesterday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal found the trial judge erred in his assessment of evidence from a key crown witness – the man who testified that Drake was the shooter.
“Mr. [Morgan] Harrington was the key Crown witness at trial,” the written decision reads. “He was acknowledged to be a quintessentially disreputable witness, whose evidence had to be approached with considerable caution.
“The appellant says there was evidence the trial judge did not adequately address that raised a reasonable doubt he had committed the murder. He says the trial judge accepted Morgan Harrington’s identification of him as the shooter on the basis of evidence that could not have confirmed Mr. Harrington’s truthfulness about the appellant being the shooter.”
According to the original decision on Drake’s conviction, Harrington was interviewed extensively immediately following the shooting, but did not identify Drake. In early 2019, he gave police a statement about the incident, saying he felt sorry for Keizer’s mother and was tired of worrying about his safety.
The rollercoaster of emotions
Kravis says the last decade has been a rollercoaster.
“[Drake’s] incarcerated, he’s not incarcerated; and he’s on bail, he’s not on bail; we dropped the original murder charge, and all of a sudden, there’s no murder charge.”
Drake remains behind bars, though.
He’s appealing a second-degree murder conviction in Pat Stay’s 2022 stabbing death.
Kravis fears the worst if that appeal is successful, too.
“There’s a possibility that this man, this monster, is going to be back out on the streets.”
While Kravis acknowledges Keizer made some mistakes when he was younger, what she misses the most is “his smile.”
“His love for me and his family,” she says. “He could light up a room. He loved beyond measure.”
In overturning Drake’s conviction, the Court of Appeal ordered a new first-degree murder trial.
But Kravis’s fight for justice won’t stop.
“I fought tooth and nail for my son, and I’m going to do the same thing.”
With files from Sean Mott
