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Prosecutors used ‘secret witness’ to send KC man to prison for life. That’s illegal

Authorities really did a number on Keith Carnes, a Kansas City man convicted of a deadly crime. Jackson County prosecutors used a police informant during Carnes’ bench trial in 2006 without informing the defense. Carnes’ right to a fair trial was violated as a result. Had the fact been revealed during trial, he would have most likely been cleared of the first-degree murder conviction that sent him to prison for life almost 20 years ago.

Instead, Carnes was convicted of killing Larry White, his alleged drug rival.

Prosecutors failed to notify defense attorneys that they used the sworn testimony of a confidential informant for the Kansas City Police Department to convict Carnes in the 2003 shooting, according to Christopher Iliff, executive director of Miracle of Innocence, a nonprofit started by exonerees Darryl Burton of Missouri and Lamonte McIntyre of Kansas.

“You can’t use a secret witness in a murder case,” Iliff said.

The omission was discovered during an evidentiary hearing in September to introduce new evidence in the case. Carnes’ right to a fair trial was violated, his attorneys argued in legal papers filed last month.

The informant testified during a bench trial in 2006 against Carnes, a fact never revealed to Carnes’ attorneys. Authorities committed what is known as a Brady violation by withholding evidence favorable to the defense.

The government cannot withhold evidence that is material to the defendant’s guilt or innocence, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the 1963 case Brady v. Maryland. That’s why Carnes’ right to due process was clearly violated in this case.

The latest evidence was turned over to a special master appointed by the Missouri Supreme Court to look into claims that Carnes didn’t commit the crime.

In 2006, the informant testified that she saw Carnes shoot White multiple times.

Evidence introduced at an evidentiary hearing before Special Master William Hickle contradicted the woman’s claim that Carnes stood over White while firing the fatal shots. No shell casings were ever found near White’s body.

Another witness testified that she lied when she fingered Carnes as the shooter decades ago.

“We have discredited every piece of evidence in this case,” said Taylor Rickard, one of Carnes’ attorneys. “There have been recanted statements, obvious lies told and there is no physical evidence that ties Keith to this crime. There’s nothing left that points to him as the perpetrator.”