Wayne Burgess of Tennessee was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in the death of his girlfriend’s 1-year-old daughter, Nakeavia Rivers, who died Aug. 8, 1997, after being rushed to a hospital in critical condition.
Harlan testified the infant died of a blow to the abdomen shortly before being brought to the hospital.
But 24 years after Burgess was convicted, a Tennessee judge vacated his sentence on April 13.
He concluded that Harlan got it wrong and Burgess was innocent.
In contrast, the Kentucky Court of Appeals last month affirmed a lower court order refusing to vacate Bowles' conviction and life sentence for a 1994 murder in Christian County.
Citing a recent opinion from a retained expert witness, former Kentucky Chief Medical Examiner Dr. George Nichols, Bowles claimed Harlan got it wrong when he concluded the victim of that crime died of asphyxiation.
But a Christian Circuit Court judge and the Court of Appeals said there was other evidence supporting Bowles' conviction.
The momentous decision in Burgess' case came after three expert witnesses – including Tennessee's current chief medical examiner, Dr. Adele Lewis – testified in a hearing this month that Nakeavia could not have died the way Harlan said she did – that it was medically impossible.
The amount of blood and fluid found in her abdomen during an autopsy would have taken hours or days to gather, the experts said. But Burgess was only alone with the infant for minutes before she was brought to the hospital.
“Mr. Burgess could not have committed the crime and is innocent of the offense,” Circuit Judge David L. Green wrote in an order.
Unlike in Bowles’ case in Kentucky, the judge held the testimony of the three experts was “new scientific evidence not presented or available to the jury” that convicted Burgess.
The state of Tennessee has 30 days to appeal, and for now, Burgess is still locked up in Tennessee’s Hardeman County Correctional Facility."
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2023/04/27/wayne-burgess-conviction-in-nakeavia-rivers-murder-vacated/70138124007/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
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