Joseph Webster was reunited with his family after his 2006 murder conviction was vacated and prosecutors dismissed the charge.
Joseph Webster walked out of a Nashville detention center on November 10, 2020, after serving nearly 15 years of a life sentence for the killing of Leroy Owens. Judge Steve Dozier vacated Webster’s first-degree murder conviction after the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office said it no longer had confidence in the verdict. Court records list the charge as nolle prosequi on November 12. ([horwitz.law](https://horwitz.law/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Order-Granting-Joseph-Webster-Coram-Nobis-and-Vacating-Conviction.pdf))
Webster, then 41, had been convicted on March 1, 2006, in Owens’s November 22, 1998, death. His mother, Marie Burns, embraced him upon his release. ([horwitz.law](https://horwitz.law/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Order-Granting-Joseph-Webster-Coram-Nobis-and-Vacating-Conviction.pdf))
“Lord have mercy,” she shouted, according to The Tennessean. “I love you. I’m so glad to see you. Oh, it’s been so long, baby. Oh, it’s been so long.”
Why prosecutors lost confidence
Webster’s attorney, Daniel Horwitz, applied to the district attorney’s Conviction Review Unit in March 2017, seeking DNA testing and a broader review of the evidence. In its November 6, 2020, response to Webster’s petition, the state said the CRU’s investigation had caused it to lose confidence in the conviction and that vacating it was the appropriate remedy. ([danielhorwitz.com](https://danielhorwitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/DA-Reply-11-6-2020.pdf))
“For the District Attorney, for General (Glenn) Funk to create a CRU is a bold and courageous step to take in ensuring that our office engages in self-reflection and self-accountability, which is and should be central to how we view our role in the justice system. When we determined we no longer had confidence in the conviction, we had a moral and ethical obligation to act,” then-CRU Director Sunny Eaton told The Tennessean.
The reinvestigation identified significant problems with the eyewitness evidence. Additional witnesses described the attackers as substantially thinner than Webster, who weighed about 300 pounds and had 12 prominent gold front teeth that witnesses did not report seeing. DNA testing also excluded Webster as a contributor to genetic material recovered from the cinder block used in the killing, although that result did not by itself identify the attacker. ([da.nashville.gov](https://da.nashville.gov/ny-times-article-das-new-conviction-review-unit-frees-joseph-webster/))
Tammy Nelson had identified Webster as one of the men who came to her apartment before Owens was killed. She later recanted or retreated from that identification during post-conviction proceedings. Earlier courts denied Webster relief after questioning the recantation, but the CRU later concluded that Nelson’s testimony was too unreliable to sustain the conviction. ([law.justia.com](https://law.justia.com/cases/tennessee/court-of-criminal-appeals/2015/m2014-02508-cca-r3-ecn.html))
“I mean, there is so much that’s impossible to overlook in this case,” Horwitz told Fox 17. “That’s why I think this case is the one that ended up being the first conviction ever to be overturned here, all of the new evidence.” ([fox17.com](https://fox17.com/news/ferrier-files/nashville-man-imprisoned-for-murder-for-almost-15-years-may-walk-free))
Allegations about another suspect
The defense and the CRU also considered statements alleging that Webster’s half-brother, Kenneth Neal, had confessed or bragged about the killing. In an interview included with Webster’s application, Shawanna Norman said:
“Kenny told me he had to chase him down and beat the shit out of him with a brick.” ([scotblog.org](https://scotblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/J.-Webster-CRU-Application.pdf?utm_source=openai))
Those statements remained allegations rather than an adjudication of Neal’s guilt. At an earlier post-trial hearing, Neal denied owning the white station wagon associated with the case, and the court rejected family members’ late-raised allegations as not credible. The 2020 order did not identify or convict another perpetrator; it recorded that the state and defense had presented evidence indicating another individual committed the murder and that prosecutors believed Webster was not guilty. ([law.justia.com](https://law.justia.com/cases/tennessee/court-of-criminal-appeals/2015/m2014-02508-cca-r3-ecn.html))
Upon his release, Webster expressed sympathy for Owens’s family while maintaining his innocence.
“I feel their pain, but I ain’t the one that did it. I hope they find out the person who actually did it,” he told The Tennessean. “I do feel sympathy for them. I wish them the best on their situation, too.”