TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on May 22, 2023

A Giles County judge last month overturned a murder conviction that relied on the testimony of disgraced former Tennessee medical examiner Charles Harlan. In the ruling, Judge David L. Allen wrote that new scientific evidence shows Wayne Burgess, convicted of murdering an infant in 1999, is innocent. Burgess is set to appear in court this week for his Tennessee Innocence Project attorneys to argue for immediate release, the Tennessean reports. Burgess’ conviction relied heavily on the testimony of Harlan, who was Nashville's first medical examiner and later the state’s chief medical examiner. Other medical professions who testified in the case concluded it was impossible that an alleged injury hours before the child’s death could have been the cause of death. Harlan was suspended without pay 1994. A year later, his contract with the state was terminated, and in 2005, his medical license was permanently stripped.