BALTIMORE _ A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge formally exonerated three men for the notorious 1983 murder of a junior high school student over a Georgetown basketball jacket, granting State Attorney Marilyn Mosby's request to free them after decades in prison.
"On behalf of the criminal justice system, and I'm sure this means very little to you gentlemen, I'm going to apologize," Circuit Court Judge Charles Peters said in open court Monday afternoon, addressing Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart Jr.
The decision erasing the convictions and prosecutors dropped all charges. The family and attorneys of the men were awaiting their release later Monday afternoon.
This month 36 years ago, DeWitt Duckett, a ninth-grader at Harlem Park Junior High School, was shot in his neck inside the West Baltimore school. Police said the 14-year-old boy was jumped by three youths for his blue Georgetown jacket. He struggled down the hallway and collapsed in the cafeteria. School officials called his death the first homicide in a Baltimore public school, and his killing touched off a firestorm of debate over school safety.
In an interview after her son's death, Franzelle Duckett said he worked as a stock clerk to buy the $75 nylon jacket. Police charged 16-year-olds Chestnut, Watkins and Stewart Jr. with his murder. The three were convicted on the testimony of four Harlem Park students who identified them. Defense attorneys, however, argued the testimony contained inconsistencies. The defense attorney for Chestnut told the jury his client already owned a new Georgetown jacket, a gift from his mother.
A judge sentenced the three teens to life in prison.
The three men will become the latest prisoners exonerated and set free by a partnership between Mosby's conviction integrity unit and two nonprofit innocence projects.
Last May, they exonerated the East Baltimore brothers Kenneth "JR" McPherson and Eric Simmons who had been serving life terms for a 1994 murder. Investigators found new evidence that they said confirmed the brothers' alibis.
In December last year, Clarence Shipley Jr., 47, stepped out onto the sidewalk in downtown Baltimore as a free man. He had spent 27 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction. He too had been convicted on faulty witness testimony.
The nonprofit investigators in July, 2018 freed Jerome Johnson, who was wrongly convicted of murder in Park Heights and spent 30 years behind bars.
Previously, Lamar Johnson was exonerated of murder in September 2017 after serving 13 years in prison. He had been misidentified as having the nickname of the shooter.
Malcolm Bryant was exonerated of murder in May 2016 by DNA evidence and set free after 17 years in prison. Bryan died of a stroke less than one year into his freedom.
In announcing the latest case, Mosby's office noted she has exonerated nine people since taking office in 2015.
