Nearly two years after he was convicted of the murder of Tyler Keizer in Halifax, Adam Drake has won his appeal and will receive a new trial following a ruling from a three-member panel. Drake was found guilty of killing Keizer in 2024. Keizer was shot and killed in a parking lot near the Salvation Army building on Gottingen Street on Nov. 21, 2016. Drake appealed the conviction, citing an unreasonable delay in the original trial and the judge accepting evidence from Morgan Harrington, who the defence previously described as an “unsavoury witness.” Drake’s case lasted for nearly 62 months from the first charge being laid to the end of his trial. The three members on the panel for the Court of Appeal, in the written decision, said they would not order a stay of proceedings due to the delay as the case was “particularly complex,” but agreed the trial judge erred in the assessment of Harrington’s evidence. “Mr. 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 defence argued Harrington’s decision to give a statement was motivated by self interest. Drake was charged with first-degree murder following Harrington’s statement. Police dropped the charges against him in October 2021, but reinstated them in November 2022. The written decision from the three-member panel noted Keizer’s murder was captured on CCTV security footage and there was no dispute Harrington knew the shooter as he saw the first shot. “Morgan Harrington’s testimony was the only direct evidence that implicated the appellant,” the decision reads. “No forensic evidence linked the appellant to the crime scene.” The panel ruled the trial judged erred by relying on evidence to prove Harrington’s truthfulness that did not fulfill that goal. “(The judge) looked for evidence to restore his faith that Mr. Harrington could be trusted in his identification,” the decision reads. “The trial judge’s concern to have his faith restored was an acknowledgment that his confidence in Mr. Harrington, a ‘dishonest, extremely violent’ man with ‘little to no regard for other people, of the law,’ was under water. “The evidence of Morgan Harrington was the lynchpin of the appellant’s conviction. It had to be assessed correctly. The error in doing so was not harmless. The guilty verdict must be set aside and a new trial ordered.” Drake was convicted of killing rapper Pat Stay last fall. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
