Tennessee Innocence Project Gives Wrongfully Convicted Prisoners a Second Chance at Freedom

Carrington Fox
Jun 30, 2022
Jun 30, 2022

In 1988, Tennessean Joyce Watkins went to prison for 27 years for a murder she did not commit. In January 2022, after spending half her life behind bars and on parole, she was cleared of all charges when the nonprofit Tennessee Innocence Project presented accurate science to overturn the decades-old, erroneous medical evidence used to convict Joyce and her friend Charlie Dunn.

Launched in 2019 as the first full-time innocence organization in the state, TIP is the outgrowth of 20 years of volunteer efforts to research claims of actual innocence. In its current form, with a staff of six and an office in Berry Hill, TIP has already exonerated four Tennesseans, including Joyce, Paul Shane Garrett in August 2021 and Claude Garrett in May 2022. Charlie Dunn died in 2015 before his 2022 exoneration.

But an overwhelming amount of work remains to examine claims of innocence. Last year, TIP received 125 applications for new representation from 41 counties across the state, and pro bono attorneys contributed 1,600 hours of volunteer research to pursue those claims.

Across the U.S., 3,139 people have been exonerated since 1989 after losing a cumulative 27,080 years in prison for crimes they did not perpetrate.

But statistics can’t begin to express the significance of TIP’s work like Joyce Watkins can. At a recent spring gathering hosted by Liza Canale and Baker Eadie and Katherine and Chris Cigarran, guests sat spellbound and teary as Joyce narrated the long-overdue dismissal of charges after TIP Senior Legal Counsel Jason Gichner and the Davidson County Conviction Review Unit collaborated to clear her name and the name of Charlie Dunn in the murder of Joyce’s great-niece.

With an abundance of grace and gratitude, Joyce thanked TIP for giving her a second chance at freedom, and she encouraged the group to support its efforts to investigate the many remaining claims of innocence so they can help more wrongfully convicted Tennesseans like her.