Kharon Davis was 22 when he was charged with capital murder and booked into the county jail. Ten years later, he is still there, awaiting trial.
He has had two judges, four teams of lawyers and nine trial dates, the first of which was in 2008. His case has outlasted a district attorney who served for nearly three decades. It defies any common understanding of the right to a speedy trial.
As the case has languished, Mr. Davis, whose only prior offense was driving without a license, has been segregated from the jails general population for minor transgressions like unauthorized peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and a couple of more serious ones, like fighting. His mother, Chrycynthia Davis, says she has been allowed to visit him just once in the last three years.
Though he has not been found guilty, Mr. Davis has already served half of the minimum sentence for murder.