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Joyce Watkins, exonerated after spending 27 years behind bars for a crime she didn’t commit, talks at length about all that she lost while behind bars with CBS Sunday Morning. She was a month away from adopting and even had her nursery room set up.
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That is heartbreaking.
Her boyfriend at the time, Charlie Dunn, also had his conviction posthumously overturned. He died in prison after receiving parole but before he was released. He spent 27 years in prison wrongfully convicted of first degree murder and rape of a 4 year old. This sort of stuff should make everyone sick to our stomachs. The justice system in America is anything but that.
This is exactly why I do not support the death penalty. There are some who completely deserve death and I would gladly do it myself. On the other side though, there are cases like this. I do not trust the government enough to allow them to carry out the death penalty.
I didn’t know about this case. Here’s [a CNN article about it](https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/14/us/woman-wrongfully-convicted-exonerated-trnd/index.html).
>On June 26, 1987, Joyce Watkins, now 74, and her boyfriend at the time, Charlie Dunn, went to pick up Watkins four-year-old great-niece, Brandi, in Kentucky, according to a report filed with the Davidson County Criminal Court.
>The next morning Brandi was unresponsive, so Watkins took her to Nashville Memorial Hospital.
>Brandi suffered from severe vaginal injury and head trauma. She was pronounced dead the following day, the report stated. The two were with Brandi for only nine hours, but the medical examiner, Dr. Gretel Harlan, concluded the injuries were sustained during that time.
>A year later, in August 1988, Watkins and Dunn were convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated rape.
Both spent 27 years in prison before being granted parole in 2015, but her boyfriend died in prison before he was to be released.
Turns out the great-aunt of the child had CPS called in multiple times and they were told the child’s injuries were from playground accidents.
>A report from Dr. Shipla Reddy was also included in the filing, who said Dr. Harlan’s “methodology for dating the head injury based upon a lack of histiocytic response in the brain tissue is not a legitimate method for dating pediatric head trauma.”
>**The ruling noted Harlan conceded the error in her methodology years after the trial.**
Jesus.
>**As far as Watkins or Dunn’s family getting [compensated for their wasted time spent in jail](https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/18/us/north-carolina-wrongful-conviction-compensation/index.html), Gichner said he is unsure of what will happen down the road.**
She better get *heavily* compensated. She lost everything she had and almost everyone she loved due to this wrongful conviction. I wanted to point out [this case](https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/23/us/kevin-strickland-triple-murder-wrongful-conviction-freed-trnd/index.html): Kevin Strickland spent 43 years in prison for the murder of three people before they ruled it was a wrongful conviction. Not a penny was provided as compensation by the state of Missouri. Not a single penny. The community got together and raised money for him with the help of the Midwest Innocence Project through a go fund me. The system is broken. I’m so angry. I know of another where the man was given like $50 and he had no idea that he should have been awarded more.
You take away their homes, jobs, friends, family, lock them up for decades, and just throw innocent people back on the street with an “oops, my bad” and expect them to just figure it out? Seriously what the fuck.
considering we are the universe expiriencing itself, it is incredibly sad that some people unrightiously lose out on the oportunity to collect beautiful memories.
I mean this is pretty normal in America.
Where’s the evidence she and her boyfriend didn’t commit the crime? Just because it was proven the child had been abused by other family members and her injuries weren’t 100% proven to have been sustained within the time period they were watching her, doesn’t mean they were innocent. Is there someone else who confessed or some other evidence they came up?
“*White People*” -Chappelle Show Sound Clip
Better to have 10 innocent people go to jail than 1 guilty person walk away /s