Nebraska Supreme Court denies request for new trial for man convicted in 2010 murder of Peru State classmate

A Nebraska man who was convicted of murder after the disappearance of a fellow student at Peru State College will not get a second trial, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday.

In 2020, a jury found Joshua Keadle guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Tyler Thomas, who was last seen walking back to her dorm from an off-campus party in the early morning hours of Dec. 3, 2010. When questioned by police, Keadle admitted he had been with Thomas in the hours before she disappeared. He said he drove Thomas to a boat ramp along the Missouri River and left her there alive after the two argued.

Thomas’s body has not been found, but she was declared legally dead in 2013. She was 19 years old.

It wasn’t until 2017 that prosecutors with the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office charged Keadle with Thomas’ murder. When Keadle was charged, he was already in prison serving a 15- to 20-year prison sentence for first-degree sexual assault.

The Nebraska Supreme Court previously considered an appeal from Keadle alleging that the jury lacked evidence to find that he committed the murder beyond a reasonable doubt. That appeal was denied in 2022.

In 2023, Keadle filed another appeal. He alleged that his attorneys provided ineffective assistance of counsel, primarily because they failed to object to the testimony of a defense witness.

During trial, according to the opinion released Friday, Keadle’s attorneys presented the theory that Thomas, who was intoxicated and not wearing a coat, “succumbed to hypothermia, became disoriented, fell into the river, and died.” The attorneys called a forensic pathologist as a witness, who testified that Thomas’ death could be considered a homicide if Keadle left her “in a situation where [she] may never be able to get back to safety.”

Keadle’s attorneys did not object to the pathologist’s statements, and they did not ask any further questions of him on cross-examination. At Keadle’s sentencing hearing, one of his attorneys told the judge that he felt responsible for Keadle’s conviction because he had not pushed back on or responded to the witness testimony from the pathologist.

The attorneys who represented Keadle at trial were deposed, and a hearing was held in Gage County. A judge rejected Keadle’s claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, finding that the attorneys made “strategic choices.” Keadle appealed that decision to the Nebraska Supreme Court.

In its opinion, the court said there was no evidence that Keadle did not meet his burden to prove that his attorneys were deficient. They also said Keadle’s attorney’s admission of deficient performance is not binding on the court.

“A rule that would permit lawyers to bind the court by impugning their own professional conduct, at least outside of disciplinary proceedings, could perversely incentivize lawyers to “confess” deficient performance,” the court wrote.

Keadle was sentenced to 71 years to life in prison for Thomas’s murder, to run consecutive to his sentence in the sexual assault case. He will become eligible for parole in 2054.