The legal system in the United States of America is supposed to rest on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Yet all too often the severity of a crime is used to target defendants, assigning them automatic blame without actually considering whether they are indeed the perpetrators. Knowing that there are innocent people behind bars serving life sentences is deeply disturbing, and it’s all too rare that improper convictions are indeed overturned. When a Witness Recants details what one lawyer interviewed describes as the most egregious case she’s ever encountered, which sent three innocent teenagers to jail for thirty-six years based on paper-thin witness testimony and deplorable police and prosecutorial misconduct.
In November 1983, fourteen-year-old DeWitt Duckett was shot and killed at Harlem Park Junior High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Soon after, sixteen-year-olds Alfred Chestnut, Andrew Stewart, and Ransom Watkins were arrested and put on trial. One of the key witnesses was Ron Bishop, who was with Duckett when he was shot and told detectives that it was just one person. Pushed to support a narrative that another student has apparently shared and fearful that, if he doesn’t comply, he’ll be sent to prison on trumped-up charges himself, Bishop identified the three suspects and aids in their conviction, reversing his testimony thirty-six years later when Chestnut’s repeated requests for further investigation finally reach the wrongful convictions unit of the State Attorney’s office.
This is a difficult film to watch since audiences will be aware from the start that this journey to freedom took decades and cost these three men so much of their lives. Watching them talk about how they never got to have children or to accomplish what they might have liked to is heartbreaking, and it gets even more granular than that, like Watkins asking his wife what’s for dinner but never offering up an opinion or a request since he didn’t get to make choices like that for so much of his life. They recount what they recall of their arrest and trial, and how genuinely shocked they were to even be accused before accepting this incomprehensible verdict from the jury since there was nothing more they could do about it.
This story is fascinating – and infuriating – enough on its own, and testimony footage collected several years ago that includes the detective responsible for introducing the three as suspects affirming that he still believes it was a perfect investigation demonstrates just how much of a judicial failure this was. But director Dawn Porter goes further, featuring extensive interviews with Bishop about his mindset and what led him to be the lynchpin of their convictions and finally come forward so much after the fact to help get them released. The film’s emotional apex comes when Porter facilitates a meeting between Bishop and the three exonerated men, where they speak openly and freely about how they feel and what they’ve lost.
This is an understandably emotionally draining film which features its three primary subjects being raw and vulnerable, occasionally breaking down as they remember impactful moments and reflect back on what they’ve missed. It’s extremely upsetting to think about how easily these three were sent away for lives when they shouldn’t ever have been suspects in the first place, and author Ta-Nehisi Coates appears to discuss his own Baltimore upbringing and how much the case and its implications have followed him throughout his life. The existence of a department charged with reviewing potential wrongful convictions is an important step for the present and future, but this film shows there’s so much more to be done to correct a flawed system. This film is deeply personal and affecting, offering an unflinching and cripplingly honest picture of three people who had so much of their lives stolen from them.
Movie Rating: 8/10
When a Witness Recants premieres in the Premieres section at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
