Black trio freed of murder 36 years late

THREE MEN incarcerated for 36 years in Maryland were exonerated Monday in the slaying of a Baltimore teenager after a review of their case.

Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins, and Andrew Stewart were released from custody hours after a judge cleared their convictions and prosecutors dropped the charges. They were teenagers when they were sentenced to life in prison in 1984.

“On behalf of the criminal justice system, and I’m sure this means very little to you, gentlemen, I’m going to apologise,” Circuit Court judge Charles Peters told the men, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Chestnut, Watkins, and Stewart, all African Americans, were arrested on November 1983 for the slaying of 14-year-old DeWitt Duckett. The teenager was accosted over his Georgetown jacket and shot in the neck while walking to class at a Baltimore school.

The case was reopened earlier this year by the office of Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby after Chestnut sent a letter to the Conviction Integrity Unit. The Washington Post reported that Chestnut included exculpatory evidence he uncovered last year. Prosecutors now say police reports show that multiple witnesses told police that another suspect, who was 18 at the time of the crime, was the shooter. One student saw him flee the scene and dump a gun as police arrived at Harlem Park Junior High School, but authorities at the time focused their investigation on the trio.

The new suspect was shot to death in 2002.

DOUBTS

An assistant prosecutor working on the case told the court in 1984 that the state did not have any reports that would have raised doubts about the defendants’ guilt even though police records had statements involving the 18-yearold and also showed that trial witnesses had failed to identify the teenagers in photo line-ups. A judge sealed those documents, but Chestnut obtained them through a public records request last year.

“Everyone involved in this case – school officials, police, prosecutors, jurors, the media, and the community – rushed to judgement and allowed their tunnel vision to obscure obvious problems with the evidence,” said Shawn Armbrust, executive director of the MidAtlantic Innocence Project, which represents Watkins. Armbrust added that “this case should be a lesson to everyone that the search for quick answers can lead to tragic results”.