Robert Watts

I both love and hate reading about very old crimes. First, I like hearing new stories but the information on them are very scarce unless it is one that has been handed down through generations. However, the problem with the latter is that much of the information gets skewed over the years with the re-telling of the story. Cases like Leopold and Loeb and The Bloody Benders are good examples of this. Then there are the cases like that against Robert Watts.

Much of the information I was able to obtain came from excerpts of an appeal filed in this case and from later information when inmates in Indiana were executed. Robert Watts would be executed by the state in the electric chair in 1951. The next execution, which would be the last in the state before executions were halted from 1972-1976, took place in 1961.

What I can tell you about this case was that a woman named Mary Lois Burney was murdered on November 14, 1947. All I could determine was that she had been shot. This had apparently taken place in Indianapolis, or nearby as it stated Marion County. By November 19^th, a man by the name of Robert Watts had been indicted. In January of 1988 Watts was tried in nearby Shelby County after obtaining a change of venue. He was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death.

Later in 1948 the Indiana Supreme Court denied his request for a new trial. The NAACP then took up Watts' case and took it to the United States Supreme Court. They argued that “Negroes were discriminated against in the selection of the grand jury that had indicted him and that he had been denied his right to talk to counsel” during the six days he had been held without being charged with the crime. The United States Supreme Court ruled on June 27, 1949 that not only had he been “coerced into making a confession under illegal conditions,” he had been denied his right to an attorney. Apparently while being beaten and under duress it was said that not only had Watts confessed to the murder of Mary Burney, a white woman if you could not have been able to tell by now, but also in the stabbing death of sixty-eight year old widow, Mabel Merrifield on October 30, 1947. It appears that he was never tried in Mabel's death even though it does seem that he was initially charged with two counts of first degree murder.

Robert Watts' next trial was in October of 1949 in Bartholomew County after another change of venue. Once again he was convicted and sentenced to death. The state of Indiana executed Robert Watts on January 16, 1951. His body was taken to Chicago where he was buried.

Just as I am sure that you would like to know more, so would I. This was an era in which not only was police brutality and extreme interrogation methods were used to obtain confessions but also an era in which African-Americans were treated with the upmost distaste and said to often be wrongly accused of crimes simply because of the color of their skin. While police brutality in and of itself was not taken very seriously, or could even touch on how it is looked at today, when that brutality was against a person of color it was considered to be even less of an issue. I suppose the fact that it was considered at all in this case and the basis for the overturning of his conviction should tell us something. I do not believe it is telling us that it was being taken more seriously, but more than likely is telling us this was an extreme case.

While I agree that in this day and age cases seem to take forever to actually be resolved, no matter how minor or extreme they may be but I also believe that in the era that Robert Watts' case took place there was extreme carelessness. I found nothing on what kind of evidence the prosecutors had on Robert Watts beyond the confession that the courts later said was coerced and dismissed. His first trial occurred less than two months after the crime had been committed. In my opinion not only was this not enough time for investigators and prosecutors to gather their evidence, it was not enough time to adequately allow the defense the opportunity to present a case or look into the allegations. I suspect it is this time period that gave way to the continued arguments of ineffective counsel that we see today.

There will never likely be more information on this case for a variety of reasons. For one, it is decades old and few know of the case. Secondly, from a legal standpoint the case was closed at the execution of Robert Watts. To be fair though I think one of the main reasons we will never see any more information on this is because if information led to the fact that Watts may not have been guilty of the crime would show once again that an innocent person was executed. Several years ago a crime from the early 1900's that led to the execution of a black man was looked at and it was determined the man had been innocent. It riled up anti-death penalty advocates but the reality is that while the man was exonerated, the fact that he had already died, let alone was executed for the crime meant the exoneration meant very little. I am not saying that this was the case for Robert Watts, but I am also saying that is why we will never know for sure.