Prisoner who claims innocence in KCK murder says DOC not treating his terminal cancer
A prisoner who maintains he is innocent of a 2002 murder in Kansas City, Kansas, has sued the state Department of Corrections, alleging officials are not properly treating his terminal cancer.
Lawyers for 56-year-old John Keith Calvin, who has Stage 4 colon cancer, said he has lost more than 70 pounds in the past three months. He “continues to be starved to death” by KDOC, which refuses to provide him intravenous nourishment, they claimed.
In an emergency filing last week, Calvin’s attorneys asked a judge to force KDOC to move Calvin, who has been hospitalized for nearly half of the last two months, to a hospital that can manage his “severe” pain. His attorneys say he is exceptionally frail and, without court intervention, will “quickly die” from malnourishment.
Having spent more than 19 years in prison, Calvin is eligible for parole in May.
His two daughters, Kiardra Calvin and Jalisa Bluford, said the Department of Corrections was neglectful in testing him for cancer after he showed symptoms and has not properly treated the illness.
During one visit, Calvin’s daughters noticed he was fed chicken broth and Jell-O, which they say don’t have the nutrition he needs, especially if he undergoes radiation or chemotherapy. The siblings also said Calvin was supposed to have an appointment with an oncologist on Monday, but that hasn’t happened.
“They failed him,” Bluford said in a phone interview Wednesday.
The Kansas Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘Chronically ill appearing’
Calvin was moved in November to a medical center in Wichita because he had blood in his stool and serious abdominal pain, according to his complaint. At the time, KDOC “refused” to disclose Calvin’s location to his lawyers or relatives, the filing alleges.
“It was really frustrating and really heartbreaking,” Kiardra Calvin said, adding that she and her sister couldn’t get information even though they have power of attorney.
Doctors at the medical center — who described John Calvin as “chronically ill appearing” — planned to perform surgery on him, but realized his abdominal area was “too full of cancer” to operate, Calvin’s lawyers said. Surgeons stitched him up “without further treatment” and wrote that he will likely need to rely on multiple tubes once discharged, they said.
Since then, KDOC has failed to provide him with pain relief, according to his complaint. His cancer prevents him from digesting food, but prison officials have not given him intravenous nutrition.
Calvin was then hospitalized in December after a tube that helped collect his urine detached, causing it to drain into his body. KDOC again declined to tell his lawyers where he was located, the lawyers said. That violated his First Amendment rights and prevented him from working to help his lawyers “obtain his exoneration,” according to the complaint filed in the U.S. District of Kansas.
“The KDOC’s active hiding of Mr. Calvin, and the KDOC’s refusal to allow his attorneys to speak with him, is interfering with their efforts to adequately and effectively advocate on his behalf,” his lawyers wrote. “Once Mr. Calvin dies, what he knows, and the directions he desires to communicate to his attorneys, will be lost forever.”
Calvin’s daughters said they hope he can get moved to a facility with better care and in time to see his family, including grandchildren he has not met.
“We’re all walking on eggshells on a day to day basis,” Bluford said. “We don’t know how long he has to live. We just put it in God’s hands.”
“I just want him to be comfortable and just get justice,” Kiardra Calvin said.
Innocence claim
John Calvin was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted robbery in the Dec. 12, 2002, killing of John Coates, who was gunned down in the 2700 block of Haskell Avenue. He is serving a life sentence at the El Dorado Correctional Facility, northeast of Wichita.
In his petition, his lawyers also allege he is the victim of a former KCK police detective who was accused in a multi-million dollar lawsuit of framing an innocent man in another case.
Calvin’s co-defendant, Melvin Lee White Jr., got a five-year sentence after taking a plea deal. White admitted he pulled the trigger and has repeatedly said Calvin is innocent.
“He ain’t do nothing; I did,” White told KCTV5 several years ago. “I should be doing the time, not him.”
In court, White has testified that Calvin was there when he went to Coates’ house to kill him, but that Calvin knew nothing of his plan to commit murder. White said he targeted Coates and that the killing was not carried out during a robbery, as the police believed, according to court records.
Last month, White broke down in tears while talking about Calvin’s innocence claim during a gathering at a KCK church, where Calvin’s relatives called for his release.
In the complaint, Calvin’s lawyers also contend he was “yet another victim” of police corruption in KCK “as exemplified” by former detective Roger Golubski, who was accused in a separate case of framing Lamonte McIntyre, who was exonerated in 2017. McIntyre spent 23 years in prison for a double murder he did not commit.
Golubski, who worked at KCKPD from 1975 to 2010, including almost eight years as a captain, is now under federal indictment and faces life in prison if convicted.
The former cop was indicted in September on federal civil rights charges that accuse him of sexually assaulting and kidnapping a woman and a teenager from 1998 to 2002.
He was indicted again in November on separate charges that allege he conspired to sex traffic underage girls between 1996 and 1998 with three men at a KCK apartment complex. Prosecutors allege he protected those violent criminals from police investigation.
Calvin is represented by lawyers who have sought investigations of Golubski or advocated for his other alleged victims.
One of his attorneys is Stephen McAllister, the former U.S. attorney for Kansas who, after he was appointed by then-President Donald Trump, in 2019 asked the FBI to investigate Golubski. Another is William Skepnek, who represents Ophelia Williams, one of the women federal prosecutors say Golubski raped in the 1990s while he investigated her sons in a criminal case.
Golubski has pleaded not guilty to the charges. He has called the allegations uncorroborated and maintains, like many people he helped send to prison, that he is innocent.
Calvin’s complaint noted that his case has been referred to the Wyandotte County district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit, which investigates complaints of police misconduct and wrongful conviction.
The DA’s office has vowed to examine every case Golubski touched. The Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department has also promised to review the 155 cases Golubski investigated as a detective.
Calvin’s family has raised other questions about KCK police before.
His relatives previously told The Star they believe Golubski, who allegedly preyed on vulnerable Black women for sex, knows who killed Calvin’s sister, Rose Calvin. She had fallen into drugs and prostitution before she was killed in 1996. Her murder remains unsolved.
“It’s sickening to me,” Kiardra Calvin said of Golubski’s alleged affect on her family.
This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
