Kurtis Watkins is losing faith in the criminal justice system.
“My life does not seem real to me,†Watkins wrote me in an email recently. “It’s like I’m in a bad dream that keeps playing. Every day I wake up in this cell.â€
That cell is in the Jefferson City Correctional Center. Watkins has been there since January 2016, when he was convicted of assault in a ºüÀêÊÓƵ shooting in which nobody died. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, in part because he had previously been convicted of a gun crime and marijuana possession.
The shooting was in the Dutchtown neighborhood, after a party in which a couple of people got in a dispute. Watkins, who is Black, was convicted based on the testimony of a white police officer, Steven Pinkerton, who was the only witness to put Watkins near the crime scene. The first trial ended in a hung jury, in part because Pinkerton testified he was “unsure†he could identify Watkins as the shooter.
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By the second trial, Pinkerton was “100 percent sure,†according to court records. An all-white jury convicted Watkins of nine felony counts.
Watkins says he has an alibi — he was at a friend’s house — but his public defender never investigated or asked the friend to testify. Nobody at the party could identify Watkins, or even knew him. The co-defendant, one of the actual shooters, says he doesn’t know Watkins.
Watkins happened to be walking to the liquor store that night, he says, when police picked him up. Pinkerton later identified him, even though Watkins didn’t really match the description of the shooter — other than the color of his skin.
Since his conviction, Watkins has gone through various appeals in Missouri courts. His latest lawyer, Jonathan Sternberg, an experienced appellate attorney from Kansas City, calls the process Watkins has endured like “something out of Kafka,†a reference to the 19th-century philosopher who wrote about absurd situations.
“At every turn, something has gone wrong,†Sternberg says. “And not just normal wrong, but bizarrely wrong.â€
The first defense attorney should have presented the alibi evidence but didn’t. The first appellate attorney should have tracked down the witnesses. Sternberg has now done that. And all of the witnesses — except for the police officer — say Watkins is innocent.
“There’s no forensics that connects Kurtis to this crime. There’s nothing,†Sternberg says. “No one can identify Kurtis as the person at the scene.â€
The latest bizarre turn came last month at the Missouri Court of Appeals. The three-judge panel ruled against Watkins in part, it said, because Sternberg failed to produce a document — a letter saying the alibi witness wouldn’t testify at an evidenciary hearing. The online court docket indicates the document was, indeed, delivered to the court.
The letter is important, Sternberg argues, because it says nothing about whether the alibi witness would testify at a trial. In the meantime, Sternberg has taken the witness’ deposition. And the witness says Watkins was with him that night.
Sternberg is asking the Court of Appeals to re-hear the case or send it to the Missouri Supreme Court.
“Growing up, watching movies or hearing about people being wrongfully convicted of a crime they did not have nothing to do with — I knew it was a thing, but I never thought in a million years it would happen to me,†Watkins wrote me. “They took me away from my wife and my kids, and still to this day my children keep asking me when I’m coming home.â€
Watkins’ case comes after the exoneration of Lamar Johnson in a murder, and a move this month to vacate the murder conviction of another ºüÀêÊÓƵ man, Christopher Dunn.
The Johnson and Dunn cases show that courts, while agonizingly slow, can move toward justice when it’s clear errors were made. But that means little for the man stuck behind bars, wondering how long he’ll be there.
“It’s not the most consequential case to the public, but it sure is to Kurtis,†Sternberg says. “This one should be easy. He’s innocent.â€