This archive report was first published on 26 November 2019.
On November 25, 2019, a Baltimore city circuit court judge formally exonerated Alfred Chestnut, Andrew Stewart, and Ransom Watkins, three men who had spent 36 years in prison for the 1983 murder of 14-year-old DeWitt Duckett.
The three men were serving life sentences for the shooting of Duckett, a student at Harlem Park Junior High School in West Baltimore, who was shot in the neck inside his school and had his Georgetown University jacket stolen.
According to the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project (MAIP), which worked to secure the release of the "Harlem Park Three," four teenage witnesses initially identified Chestnut, Stewart, and Watkins as the assailants but later recanted their testimony under pressure from police.
"These three men were convicted, as children, because of police and prosecutorial misconduct," Baltimore state's attorney Marilyn Mosby said after the three were formally exonerated.
"What the state, my office, did to them is wrong," Mosby said. "They deserve so much more than an apology. We owe them real compensation -- and I plan to fight for it."
At a press conference following the release of the three, Watkins said, "This fight is not over. You all will hear from us again."
The exoneration of the three men followed a joint investigation by the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit, MAIP, and other groups.
