State of Maryland v. Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart, Jr.

Baltimore, Maryland Defendants Alfred Chestnut, Ramsom Watkins and Andrew Steward, Jr., all African American teenagers where accused of shooting and killing 14-year-old DeWitt Duckett on November 18, 1983.



At the time Duckett was shot he and three friends were taking a short cut of the Harlem Park Junior High School cafeteria after leaving the science class. A youth demanded Duckett's jacket. When Duckett did get out of the jacket fast enough the assailant shot and killed him with a .22 caliber handgun.



Chestnut, Watkins, and Steward, former students at the school had been on campus shortly before the shooting and were ushered off of the campus by a security guard at 12:45 p.m. They immediately came under suspicion and were interviewed The all denied any involvement in the shooting. When he was interviewed, Chestnut was wearing an Georgetown Sharter jacket, the same kind that was taken from Duckett.



Duckett was with two friends just before he was shot but they did not identify Chetnut, Watkins or Steward as the assailants. The did identify Michael Willis, as someone from the neighborhood from a second photo array. However another witness to the shooting identified Chestnut, Watkins, and Steward as being involved in the shooting. The police than brought in the three boys who had been with Duckett to the police station and they identified Chestnut, Watkins, and Stewart.



Chstnut, Wakins and Steward were arrested and the starter jacket was recovered from Chestnut's closet.

They were charged on November 24, 1983 with first-degree murder, armed robbery, and illegal use of a gun. They were bound over after a preliminary hearing in which one of the witnesses said that he did not mean to say that "Michael" was the shooter. He only meant to say that he recognized Michael as being from the neighborhood.



That the trio had been on the school grounds was not contested. The security guard confirmed that he has escorted the trio off of t1he school grounds but also testified that he was Michael Willis outside the school.



A forensic examination of the starter jacket taken from Chestnut's home was not stained with blood. Chestnut's mother testified that she bought her son's starter jacket and produced a receipt for the jacket.



Other student testified that they saw two boys, none of whom were the Defendants. Two of the witnesses said that the Defendants were not in the hall at the time of the shooting.

Defendants were convicted on May 28, 1984 of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and illegal use of a weapon. At sentencing, they maintained their innocence. Stewart declared, “You still didn’t get the person who did it. I’m saying we know we didn’t do it, and a lot of other people know we didn’t do it.” The were each sentenced to life in prison on the murder charge and 20 years on concurrent on the other charges.

The convictions were affirmed by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals on in October 1985.

In 2017, Angela McKnight, a childhood sweetheart of Chestnut, who believed in his innocence decided to reinvestigate his care including the investigation conducted by Detective Kincaid. She learned that Kincaid had failed to interview two other witnesses to the crime and set about finding them. In the mean ime, Chestnut has filed a public records request and learned that there were there were Baltimore Police records that had not been produced during discovery. Those records reflected that several witnesses has identified Michael Willis as the shooter. An anonymous caller at also reported that Willis was the gunman and he was later seen wearing the jacket stolen from Duckett.

In 2019, Chestnut wrote to the Convication Integrity Unit of the Baltimore City District Attorney's office asking that the case against him and his co-defendants be reexamined. Elizabeth Hilliard, assistant public defender in the Maryland Public Defender’s office, and Brianna Ford, deputy director of the University of Baltimore Innocence Project Clinic, agreed to represent Chestnut in May 2019. The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project lawyers Frances Walters and Isabel Corngold and the law office of Christopher Nieto represented Watkins. Boothe Ripke and Rachel Wilson, of the law office of Nathans & Biddle, represented Stewart.

All of the witnesses who testified against the Defendants recanted and said that they were heavily coached. Other witnesses also recanted and said that a fourth witness did not and could not have seen the shooting. The witnesses also said that they had “many arguments” with police and the trial prosecutor about the testimony of the witness who claimed to have seen the shooting from behind the grate.

All you the young witnesses said that they had been pressured to testify that Chestnut, Watkins, and Stewart were the perpetrators of the crimes.

It was also discovered that other potentially exculpatory evidence had not been turned over to Defense counsel including witnesses who would have testified that Willis, who was dead was the shooter.

Numerous other shortcomings, discrepancies, and in appropriate behavior on the part of the investigating was discovered.

On November 22, 2019, lawyers for the Defendants file a joint motion to vacate the conviction.

It was also asserted the the Prosecutor had actively suppressed evidence that will and not the Defendants was the killer.

The Defendant has been denied parole because the refused to admit that they were guilty.

On November 25, 2019, Baltimore City Circuit Judge Charles Peters granted the Defendants' writs of actual innocence and they were released after having served 35 years on prison.

It is hard to imagine that the American criminal justice system could make a mistake like this. The City of Baltimore Police Department Homicide Detective Division completely botched the investigation of Duckett's death. In addition, the City of Baltimore's District Attorney's Office also failed to properly analyze the facts of the case because the facts did not support the charges. Also, the attorneys representing the Defendant failed them. The jury convicted convicted three young men who were not guilty and, as a result, they were sentenced to prison for what amounted to half of a normal life span. Finally, they were not paroled because they refused to take responsibility for the murder that they did not commit.

Subsequent to their release, Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart, Jr. successfully sued the City of Baltimore on civil rights violation theories. They settled with the City for $48 million. In addition, the Maryland Board of Public Works approved a payment to Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins, and Andrew Stewart, Jr. of $8.7 million to compensate them for being wrongfully convicted and incarcerated.