Krishna Maharaj

Krishna Nanan Maharaj (pronounced [kɾiʂɳaː naːnənə məɦaːɾaːdʒə]; 26 January 1939 – 5 August 2024) was a British Trinidadian businessman. In 1987 he was convicted by a Florida, U.S., court of the double murders of Chinese Jamaican businessmen Derrick Moo Young and his adult son Duane Moo Young, and was sentenced to death. Maharaj always denied committing the murders, and according to the human rights organisation Reprieve, the case of Krishna Maharaj was "an epic miscarriage of justice".

Although Reprieve claimed that on 13 September 2019, Federal Magistrate Judge Alicia M. Otazo-Reyes made a legal finding that Maharaj had proven his innocence by "clear and convincing evidence" and that "no reasonable juror could convict him" but ruled that this was not sufficient for Maharaj to be set free, their claim is false. In Maharaj v. Florida Dept. of Corrections, No. 1:17-cv-21965 (S.D. Fla.), on 13 Sept. 2019, MJ Otazo-Reyes only ordered an evidentiary hearing. On 11 Sept. 2020, MJ Otazo-Reyes recommended that his habeas petition be denied, and on 30 Nov. 2020, District Judge Jose Martinez affirmed that recommendation, writing in part:

With this in mind, the Court must also dispel Petitioner’s notion—or insistence, rather— that the Eleventh Circuit’s permission to file a second or successive petition constitutes a finding that no reasonable jurist could find Petitioner guilty—i.e., that its permission amounts to a declaration of Petitioner’s innocence. This is not so.

For example, the Eleventh Circuit stated:

Mr. Maharaj has sufficiently alleged a Brady violation: he learned in 2014 that Mejia—an individual who resided in close proximity to the murder scene and who apparently was involved with the cartel—was under criminal investigation of the Moo Young murders, a fact that the prosecution or the police knew but did not disclose.

11th COA Order Permitting Successive Petition, ECF No. 63-1 at 5. This statement, however, merely means that Maharaj has made a threshold showing; it is not a finding that a Brady violation indeed occurred. The Eleventh Circuit highlighted this point, stating “’[a]s usual nothing about our ruling here binds the district court, which must decide every aspect of the case fresh, or in the legal vernacular, de novo.’” Id. at 6 (quoting In re Chance, 831 F.3d 335, 1338 (11th Cir. 2016)). This includes—as the Eleventh Circuit clarified—“the merits” of Maharaj’s Brady claims. Id. at 7.