The city of Baltimore’s spending board unanimously approved a $48 million settlement for a group of men who were wrongfully convicted of murder and incarcerated for nearly four decades.
The “Harlem Park Three” — Alfred Chestnut, Andrew Stewart, and Ransom Watkins — were exonerated of murder in 2019 after each spending 36 years in prison. The then-teenagers were accused of murdering DeWitt Duckett, a Baltimore junior high school student, over a Georgetown University basketball jacket in 1983.
Attorneys for the men filed a lawsuit on their behalf shortly after the trio was released from prison in 2019. The lawsuit accused three former Baltimore Police detectives of misconduct, including coerced and fabricated witness statements, and further alleged that the alleged misconduct was a “result of a pattern and practice that existed within BPD at the time of their arrest and prosecution.”
The settlement approved on Wednesday resolves that complaint.
Justin Conroy, chief legal counsel for the police department, told the Board of Estimates on Wednesday that the city litigated the case for three years before deciding to settle. He pointed out that due to the age of the case and “witness testimony that's been obliterated through time and detectives who obviously no longer can remember what was done 40 years ago” that the case was “difficult” to defend.
Ultimately, through a summary judgment, the city decided that a settlement would be its most economical option.
“We thought this would be a much better value than a jury verdict, which has around the country exceeded a million to 2 million a year per incarceration,” Conroy told the board.
Conroy estimated that each of the three will get around $413,000 per year of wrongful incarceration. Each individual will receive $14.9 million with $3.3 million of that going to the attorneys.
Together, the Harlem Park Three have served 108 years in prison for a crime they did not commit and their attorneys have called it “the longest combined wrongful conviction in American history.”
The spending board regularly approves settlements for individuals who have been the targets of police misconduct but this is one of the largest. The family of Freddie Grey, whose death from injuries he received while in police custody drew protests and international attention in 2015, received a $6.4 million settlement. The city has paid $22.6 million for 41 cases related to the Gun Trace Task Force.
The payout comes through a risk management fund that the city regularly contributes to, Bob Cenname, deputy finance director, told the board. Knowing that there were long prison terms and multiple individuals involved, Cenname said that officials set aside money for this particular case.
Mayor Brandon Scott, who was not present at Wednesday’s meeting, sent in a statement that was read aloud by City Administrator Faith Leach.
“In 2023, we are literally paying for the misconduct of BPD officers decades in the past,” Scott wrote. “This is just part of the price our city must pay to right the wrongs of this terrible history. Looking back at incidents like the one that prompted the settlement underscores not only how far Baltimore Police Department has come, particularly in the past few years, but it just shows how painful that progress has been.”
