In the winter of 2016, the life of 25-year-old Kendre Demond Smith was tragically cut short in a double shooting in Oklahoma City. On February 3rd, Smith and a woman named Chameeka Harris, who was 26, were both killed. The incident was investigated as a double homicide.
An investigation into the deaths of Smith and Harris eventually led to the arrest of a suspect, Jamar Mordecai Simms.
Prosecutors alleged that the fatal shootings occurred during a drug transaction involving Simms and another individual. The case against Simms proceeded to trial, and in 2018, he was convicted of felony murder for the deaths of Kendre Smith and Chameeka Harris. He was subsequently sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences for the crimes.
However, the legal proceedings did not end there. Simms appealed his conviction, and in a significant turn of events, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the double-murder conviction in October of 2021. The appellate court's decision was based on the finding that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support the felony murder conviction, as it suggested Simms was the buyer rather than the distributor of the drugs. The court did, however, rule that Simms could be retried on an alternative theory that the killings occurred during a robbery with a dangerous weapon. Following the reversal, the Oklahoma County District Attorney's office expressed its intention to retry Simms for the killings.
