Defence lawyers allege 'misconduct' after Cambridge teenager found not guilty of murder

Two days after a jury found a Cambridge teenager not guilty of murder, he and his lawyers spoke out about a case they describe as rife with misconduct by prosecutors interested in conviction rather than justice.

On Sept. 3, a jury found Key’Marion Ennals, 19, not guilty of murder and other charges after less than 20 minutes of deliberation, according to one of Ennals’ attorneys. He had been charged in a 2021 shooting.

Ennals was held pretrial for 631 days until his attorneys, Larry Greenberg and Brice Baker of Baltimore, replaced other lawyers and uncovered what they called “unethical conduct” by the Dorchester County District Attorney's Office, including “withholding clearly exculpatory evidence” and communicating with the judge behind their backs.

“Day by day we discovered new things,” Greenberg said in an interview. “We just tended not to disclose certain things.”

Greenberg and Baker said among the evidence prosecutors withheld was a confession from a person who had insulted Ennals for not participating in the shooting. Prosecutors withheld that information for months, until days before the trial began last fall. In another case, prosecutors failed to produce a recording of an interview that was mentioned in a police report.

Ennals was released pending trial and Dorchester prosecutors were disqualified and replaced by the Prince George's County District Attorney's Office.

Greenberg said he and Baker have filed about 30 motions seeking information they believe is being withheld.

“We realized the magnitude of the things we were missing,” he said. “It's clear that we don't know what we don't know.”

During the trial, a state investigator revealed that the investigation into the shooting was ongoing, meaning authorities were still searching for a suspect.

“Unfortunately, this dishonest behavior continued throughout the trial,” Greenberg wrote in a news release. “The prosecution and police undermined the integrity of the judicial process. These unethical actions not only violated legal and ethical standards, but also eroded public confidence in our justice system.”

Denise Douglas, a spokeswoman for the Prince George's County District Attorney's Office, said: “We believe a strong case, supported by the evidence, was presented to the jury.”

“While we had hoped for a different outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and believe the justice system provided both sides with a fair trial,” Douglas said in an email.

Baker said she used her phone to time the jury's deliberations, which lasted about 18 minutes. She said defense attorneys often try to “read the tea leaves” in jurors' expressions, and they didn't seem satisfied with the prosecution's case.

“Their faces sometimes looked disgusted,” Baker said.

Greenberg added: “The jury was tired of the state's attempts to do this.”

At the news conference in Annapolis Thursday, Ennals said he had maintained his innocence throughout.

“I lost the rest of my life as a young man,” he said. “I mean, I got to graduate — in prison. I didn’t get to spend that time with my family and friends. A lot was taken away from me.”

When the not guilty verdict was read, Ennals said: “It was like my body was getting weak. I could barely stand.”