He was charged for brutally murdering car salesman Michael "Big Mike" Burns in front of his 9 year old son in 2006 - but tonight 19 year old Keith Lewis is a free man. This morning Supreme Court Justice Troadio Gonzalez upheld a no case submission from Lewis's attorney Anthony Sylvestre.
"Big Mike" was shot and killed on January 27th of 2006 at his sales shop on Freetown Road near Atlantic Bank. The prosecution's star witness against Lewis was Big Mike's 9-year-old son who witnessed his father's murder. But it was that ID from the 9 year old that ruined the case against Keith Lewis.
Defense attorney Sylvestre argued that the identification was unreliable because it was made under difficult circumstances - since the shooter was wearing a white hood and he had a red rag over his mouth. Another blow to the ID was an admission that police conducted an ID by confrontation - meaning officers put Big Mike's son in front of Lewis in a room and asked the boy if Lewis was the shooter.
Justice Gonzales was sufficiently convinced that the ID was faulty and without the murder weapon or any other physical evidence linking Lewis to the murder, he ordered the jury to find Lewis not guilty.
Lewis was originally charged along with Kareem "Pooky" Gladden but those charges were dropped in June of 2006. Kamar Henry was the prosecutor.
