Franklin County jury doesn't buy prosecutors' claim Columbus man caused fatal shooting

A 74-year-old Columbus man did not pull the trigger, but Franklin County Prosecutor Gary Tyack's office charged him with causing a 2021 fatal shooting by starting the confrontation.

It was unlike any case former Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said he ever charged in his 24 years or Columbus-area criminal defense attorney Samuel Shamansky had ever seen in his 37 years of working in the county.

"This was a ridiculous stretch," Shamansky told The Dispatch.

Ultimately, a Franklin County jury did not buy the prosecution's argument, and on Friday acquitted Robert Thomas of involuntary manslaughter for his role in a confrontation that ended with a homicide on Father’s Day 2021 in a residential neighborhood on the Far East Side.

The jury simultaneously found Thomas guilty of aggravated menacing, for which he faces a maximum of 180 days in jail, in connection with his actions that day.

Franklin County prosecutors argued that when Thomas confronted 43-year-old Jason Keys with an assault rifle on the street, Thomas made Keys and his family fear for their lives. This sparked a loud argument that resulted in a neighbor across the street interjecting by fatally shooting Keys with a rifle from his front porch, prosecutors said.

The shooter, 25-year-old Elias Smith, is charged with murder. His trial is scheduled for Dec. 5 in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

Although Smith fatally shot Keys, prosecutors accused Thomas of playing a significant role in Keys’ death.

“Robert Thomas sets in motion a series of events that ends in Elias Smith shooting the victim,” Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor Simon Huh said during opening statements.

Shamansky, one of Thomas’ defense attorneys, argued during the trial that there was no evidence Thomas pointed his gun at anyone or attempted to load it, as witnesses alleged. And even if Thomas did commit aggravating menacing, Shamansky said, Thomas could not have anticipated Smith’s actions.

“We are very happy. This man gets his life back,” Shamansky told The Dispatch after the verdict. “Mr. Thomas was no more responsible legally for the horrible, tragic death of Mr. Keys than I was. Our hope is that justice will ultimately be served when Mr. Smith is tried. Naturally, we grieve for the loss of Mr. Keys.”

“While the Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is disappointed in the not guiltyverdict on the involuntary manslaughter charge, we thank the jury for its consideration inthis matter,” Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor David Zeyen, who prosecuted the case with Assistant Prosecutor Sung Huh, said in a prepared release.

“We believe this tragic case demonstrates the need for all citizens who choose to possess firearms to fully and completely educate themselves about the responsibility of firearm ownership and use,” Zeyen said.

Involuntary manslaughter: a novel charge and an uphill battle for prosecutors to prove

Beyond the bizarre scenario, the involuntary manslaughter charge was also out there, Shamansky said.

Under Ohio law, if a person commits a misdemeanor or felony crime that causes a death, they can be convicted of felony involuntary manslaughter. So a conviction on the aggravated menacing count was necessary to convict Thomas of involuntary manslaughter.

Shamansky and O'Brien said the law has traditionally been used to convict people in assault cases — for example, the defendant punches the victim, who falls and hits their head and dies — or child endangerment cases where the kid dies.

Those are examples where death was a foreseeable outcome.

The prosecution had an uphill battle to prove Thomas caused Keys’ death since the jury would have to find Smith’s actions were foreseeable, according to O'Brien.

"Who could really foresee this?" Shamansky asked. "You just don’t figure this will happen in a suburban, idyllic neighborhood that a random dude comes out with a gun, doesn’t ask a single question and just guns a person down."

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The chaotic incident: Thomas confronts Keys with a gun

On the afternoon of June 20, 2021, Keys and his wife Charae Williams Keys visited her family for Father's Day brunch at her grandparents’ house on Walnut Hill Park Drive on the Far East Side. It’s the street where Williams Keys grew up. Thomas lives a few doors down on the same street. The Thomases and the Williams have known each other for decades. For years, Keys has visited this street.

When Keys and his wife went to leave that afternoon and get in their car, Thomas confronted Keys with an unloaded assault rifle but with an ammunition clip in his hands.

Thomas told a police officer later that he confronted Keys because he believed Keys had repeatedly been letting the air out of his car tires and poured grass killed on his lawn over the past several years, according to a recording of the interview played at trial.

“I just went up to scare him,” Thomas said on the recording. “I was trying to scare him, not, not really scare him, but let him know I had the gun … The point was to stay off my property because I have a gun.”

Thomas was in the process of trying to load a clip into the assault rifle when Keys took the clip from him. A loud argument broke out with family members running outside and screaming. Williams Keys’ grandfather, Cordell Williams, took the rifle from Thomas, who fell to the ground, according to Thomas and testimony at trial.

Smith, who lived across the street from the Williams, apparently heard the commotion but it’s unclear how much he heard or witnessed. Smith stepped just outside his door and shot Keys several times from across the street, according to the prosecution and the defense. Keys died of his wounds.

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Why did Smith shoot Keys?

Why Smith shot is unclear. He briefly appeared in court on Wednesday in the Thomas case and invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify.

Williams Keys’ mother, Charisse Penn, testified that she told Smith the day of the shooting, “you shot the wrong person."

Cordell Williams asked Smith why did he do it and Smith responded, “I don’t know,” Penn testified. Cordell Williams has died since the incident.

Video played at trial and captured by the body camera of the Columbus police officer who arrested Smith, recorded Smith saying: “I thought somebody was going to get killed, and that’s why I fired.”

Assistant Prosecutor Zeyen said Smith later told police that he recognized his neighbors but did not know them by name and was attempting to protect his elderly neighbor, Thomas, against Key, a man he didn’t recognize from the neighborhood.

Smith told police he shot Keys because he was holding the ammunition clip, Zeyen said.

jlaird@dispatch.com

@LairdWrites

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus man acquitted of causing fatal neighborhood shooting