Thread by @TheViewFromLL2

Two weeks ago, we received devastating news in Joey Watkins' case, from Season 2 of @Undisclosedpod. After a year of waiting, the Supreme Court of Georgia finally issued a ruling declining to allow Joey to appeal the trial court's ruling that his habeas was procedurally barred.

In January of 2017, Joey filed a habeas based, in part, on newly discovered evidence that the prosecutor had intentionally withheld exculpatory evidence, by hiding it under a secret GBI case number, and falsely informing the court during his trial that the evidence did not exist.

In July of 2018, the trial court dismissed Joey's petition, finding that Watkins should have found the evidence that the State hid from him much sooner. Because he did not, he forfeited any right to raise claims based upon the State's constitutional violations.

In order to find the evidence the State hid, it took five Open Records Requests to the GBI, and an incredible stroke of luck in finding the original ME – who just happened to have an old box of files stored away in a closet, including an index with the State's secret case number.

The trial court concluded that, because Georgia law says that the secret evidence SHOULD have been available to Joey through an ORA request, then, as a matter of law, Joey was responsible for finding that evidence back in 2003.

In reality, multiple ORA requests had been sent requesting production of the exact evidence the prosecution had claimed didn't exist – but it was not until @GaInnocence found the retired ME and his old box of files, and the secret case number, that the GBI produced the evidence.

Joey's petition also raised claims based on newly discovered evidence of juror misconduct. Although jurors were told not to investigate on their own, one juror attempted a drive test of the route, using incorrect locations and distances, and changed her vote as a result.

There wasn't any hint of this misconduct until 2016, when I interviewed the juror and she told me about what had happened.

But the trial court ruled that Joey had a duty in 2001, after his conviction, to go out and interview every juror that had sentenced him to life in prison.

The trial court's decision was flawed in many respects, and Joey tried to appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia. We were hopeful -- the trial court had simply ignored the Court's precedent, and we thought the Court would want to correct such obvious errors.

Case law from the Georgia Supreme Court had established that a defendant is not required to assume the prosecutor falsely represented evidence, or to presume juror misconduct where no sign exists. But the trial court's ruling didn't even acknowledge this clear precedent existed.

But in Georgia, a defendant has no right to an an appeal. They have to ask for permission from the GA Supreme Court.

And in June 2019, the GA Supreme Court declined to give Joey that permission. They didn't deny his appeal – they just refused to hear it.

The State of Georgia, it should be noted, does not need to ask for such permission. When the State of Georgia believes its rights have not been protected by a lower court, it is able to force GA Supreme Court to hear its claims, and provide relief if warranted.

Perhaps the Supreme Court of Georgia is silently overruling its own precedent and endorsing the trial court's disturbing ruling. Or perhaps the Court simply sees no need to ensure that the law as it applies to everyone else also applies equally to Joey Watkins. We can't know.

The result is the same. A man who is innocent – who has cold, hard data that proves he did not, and could not, have committed this crime – also has no right to present in open court the evidence that proves the misconduct the State engaged in to convict him.