TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Kate Prince on Nov 11, 2021

The Davidson County District Attorney’s Office yesterday asked the county’s criminal court to vacate the convictions of Joyce Watkins and Charlie Dunn and exonerate them of child murder and rape, the Nashville Scene reports. The motion was filed based on an extensive report from the office’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU), which found that Watkins and Dunn were wrongfully convicted after being prosecuted on circumstantial evidence and since-discredited methods by disgraced medical examiners. The couple was convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated rape after Watkins’ four-year-old great-niece Brandi Jessie died of head trauma in their care. In the report’s conclusion, CRU director Sunny Eaton wrote, "When stripped of demonstrably unreliable testimony, facts misrepresented to the jury and Post-Conviction Court and faulty medical conclusions, even the minute circumstantial case against Ms. Watkins and Mr. Dunn is devoid.” The couple was given a life sentence in 1988. Dunn died in prison in 2015 while awaiting release on parole. Watkins was granted parole in October of that year after serving more than 27 years in prison.