Wayne Burgess' murder sentence vacated over disgraced medical examiner's testimony

Edward Bowles of Kentucky is not the first offender to challenge a conviction based on the testimony of Tennessee's discredited former chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles Harlan.

Wayne Burgess of Tennessee was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in the death of his girlfriend’s 1-year-old daughter, Nakeavia Rivers, who died Aug. 8, 1997, after being rushed to a hospital in critical condition.

Harlan testified the infant died of a blow to the abdomen shortly before being brought to the hospital.

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But 24 years after Burgess was convicted, a Tennessee judge vacated his sentence on April 13.

He concluded that Harlan got it wrong and Burgess was innocent.

In contrast, the Kentucky Court of Appeals last month affirmed a lower court order refusing to vacate Bowles' conviction and life sentence for a 1994 murder in Christian County. Citing a recent opinion from a retained expert witness, former Kentucky Chief Medical Examiner Dr. George Nichols, Bowles claimed Harlan got it wrong when he concluded the victim of that crime died of asphyxiation. But a Christian Circuit Court judge and the Court of Appeals said there was other evidence supporting Bowles' conviction.

The momentous decision in Burgess' case came after three expert witnesses – including Tennessee's current chief medical examiner, Dr. Adele Lewis – testified in a hearing this month that Nakeavia could not have died the way Harlan said she did – that it was medically impossible.

The amount of blood and fluid found in her abdomen during an autopsy would have taken hours or days to gather, the experts said. But Burgess was only alone with the infant for minutes before she was brought to the hospital.

“Mr. Burgess could not have committed the crime and is innocent of the offense,” Circuit Judge David L. Green wrote in an order.

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Unlike in Bowles’ case in Kentucky, the judge held the testimony of the three experts was “new scientific evidence not presented or available to the jury” that convicted Burgess.

The state of Tennessee has 30 days to appeal, and for now, Burgess is still locked up in Tennessee’s Hardeman County Correctional Facility.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Wayne Burgess' conviction in Nakeavia Rivers' murder vacated