Harlem Park 3 Receives $48M Settlement After Wrongful Conviction In MD

BALTIMORE, MD — A group of men known as the "Harlem Park Three" will receive a $48 million settlement from Baltimore City after the trio was wrongfully convicted of killing a teenage boy nearly 40 years ago, according to a report.

At the request of city attorneys, Baltimore's Board of Estimates unanimously approved the settlement for Alfred Chestnut, Andrew Stewart and Ransom Watkins at a Wednesday meeting, the Baltimore Banner reported.

The settlement comes four years after the men were exonerated in the 1983 murder of 14-year-old DeWitt Duckett. The trio served a combined 108 years in prison for the crime.

As part of the settlement, each man receives $14.9 million, while their attorneys will receive $3.3 million, according to the Banner. The figure amounts to $413,000 per individual for each year of wrongful incarceration.

On Nov. 18, 1983, Duckett was robbed of his Georgetown Starter jacket and fatally shot while walking the halls at Harlem Park Junior High School. Chestnut, Stewart and Watkins were identified as suspects and originally charged in Baltimore City Circuit Court.

According to the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, the men were convicted based on the testimony of four teenage witnesses who later recanted their statements, saying they were pressured by police to change their initial stories — that one person committed the crime — and instead identify Chestnut, Stewart and Watkins as the suspects.

The trio was convicted in May 1984. Each man was sentenced to life in prison.

Decades later, the office of former Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby reopened the investigation into Duckett's murder. During the investigation, at least two of the original witnesses recanted their initial testimony.

Mosby's office concluded Chestnut, Stewart and Watkins were innocent and they were released from prison on Nov. 25, 2019.

In 2020, the trio filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore Police Department as well as Detectives Donald Kincaid, John Barrick and Bryn Joyce, claiming the case against them.