A Case of ‘Wrongful Incarceration’: Family Seeks ‘Justice’ for Judy Pickens’ 2009 Conviction for Her Son’s Murder
Judy Pickens, 51, has been serving a prison sentence for the past 15 years[1] [2] [3] after being convicted in 2009 for her son’s murder.
However, the nature of the court’s decision and the events leading to it have been strongly contested, with testimonies alleging the public defense’s denial in countering the murder charges leading to her arrest.
Per the prosecution’s account, Judy had fatally poisoned her son, four-year-old Mikal Pickens, for gaining attention and sympathy — an act resulting from Munchausen by proxy. Judy had always contested the decision, and years later, she continues to do the same. Her husband, Karl Pickens, also believes that Judy has been “wrongfully incarcerated.”
“At one point, I believed in due diligence and this system. But as I have stood and watched what my wife had to endure alone without family, it is very questionable,” he says.
Sources close to Judy also believe that she has been wrongfully convicted. When her youngest two children fell ill in 2004, Judy took them to the hospital. The doctor sent them home on fluids. However, the condition of her children worsened. A concerned Judy readmitted them to the hospital as they needed immediate medical attention for dehydration and stomach flu-like symptoms. But the treatment wasn’t enough. Mikal passed away about a week later.
Judy was arrested for Mikal’s death. It took 18 months for the prosecution to make an arrest,, and what followed was a trial that continues to haunt the Pickens family.
A contested court ruling
“Our original attorney was paid $25,000 and requested $15,000 in thirty days that we could not come up with. However, the court still allowed him as our attorney,” says Karl, hoping to bring the public’s attention to the matter. “The prosecution then attempted to state that she had a mental condition even though we always took a not guilty stand.”
The prosecutors’ decision to bring in the angle of Judy’s mental health was one way of convincing the jury that Judy was responsible for the death of her child.
- “Here’s the problem. We were never worried because we knew plenty of witnesses who knew Judy never harmed her children. We prepared to fight these charges,” says Judy’s sister, Brandie Sommerville, adding that they had the support of Judy’s husband Karl, her son Joseph, daughter Kheematah, [4] [5] her parents Shirley Day and James Campbell, pastor Bishop Beulah Brandon, her legal team, the church community, and her entire family, among others.
Judy’s team. This includes, her son Joseph, daughter Kheematah, husband Karl, pastor Bishop Beulah Brandon, her parents, and her entire family.
However, the support for Judy and her people’s belief in her wasn’t enough to prove that she could be innocent. The court works on specific protocols — a process that her family believes itself is a victim of “prosecutorial misconduct.”
There was a change of attorney in Judy’s case, as Judy’s family could not raise the required sum amount for their attorney to continue pursuing the case despite the community’s support. The situation seemed terrible, but things worsened with the arrival of the new attorney, who the court-appointed. Karl believes the new attorney was just not the right person to take over Judy’s case.
“We were then given a new attorney appointed by the courts who was once an investigator for the courts, and this was his first trial, let alone a murder trial,” Karl says, adding that the lawyer now practices tragic law. “The judge himself should not have been allowed to preside over the case due to various boards he had sat on and because he addressed jurors outside the courtroom while deliberating on a circumstantial evidence case.”
Karl went on to add how none of the court-assigned public defense failed to call the many witnesses that Judy had in her defense, not even him.
“Her public defense failed to defend her. We had over 20 witnesses in court, and on the day of her trial, he stood up and said the defense rests,” recalls Brandie. “He never called one witness. Nor did he object to many of the outlandish and inflammatory things that were said about Judy. There was nothing but circumstantial evidence and lies presented in the court.”
A nation tainted with false convictions
Judy’s situation also sheds light on America’s inability to deal with and resolve wrongful accusations, the rate of which stands at an astounding high. Per a Los Angeles Times report, the rate of wrongful convictions in the U.S. stands between 2% to 10%. The numbers might seem low, but when put in proportion with the population of the United States, it comes to between 46,000 to 230,000 innocent people. The report lists several factors that lead to it: bad police work, prosecutorial misconduct, false confessions, faulty eyewitness identification, bad lawyering, sleeping judges, and more.
Besides, Judy’s case is not the only one. Per the National Registry of Exonerations, around 73% of women exonerated in the past thirty years were wrongfully convicted of crimes that never took place. Another figure that stands out is that Around 40% of the female exonerees were wrongly convicted of crimes where their children or other loved ones in their care were harmed.
“To be wrongfully accused and falsely imprisoned has been hard and extremely difficult,” Judy writes in a public note. “I used to feel like if a person was incarcerated, they must have been guilty. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever believe a person could truly be innocent. Now I know that you can be innocent and what’s worse [is that] the law never slows down to make sure that they have the right person.”
Judy’s case and the pattern of wrongful convictions paint a familiar picture, one that’s common across America.
The long road and hope for ‘justice’
As days pass, Judy has only memories to live with — memories of her family and children who she misses.
“I have a beautiful granddaughter and the only way she has ever seen me in prison. She is so precious. I am so blessed because my son brings her up to see me, but I would love to take her to the park, teach her the family history, and be there for her the way my grandmother was for me. I have a beautiful daughter [Kheematah] who is in college right now, making me proud. She too comes to see me when she is home on break,” Judy writes. Since the time Judy wrote this note, her daughter Kheematah has graduated.
But to Judy’s relief, her family continues to stand with her and has launched a campaign to draw more attention to her case.
“My sister has been in the fight of her life for more than 15 years. We know that she did not commit this crime and we are diligently fighting to prove her innocence.”
“I implore you to take a stand with us. Throughout her [Judy] case, the courts had portrayed her as a single mother, which was also not true. One thing comes to mind: united we stand and divided we fall,” urges Karl in his public note. “Come, unite with us.”
I hope the year is right. Please change if needed.
She was sentenced 12 years ago but has been in jail since 2006 when they arrested her
Yes. Thank you and I failed to mention she did have an attorney. Mr. Holmes.
It looks great also. I want to let Karl read it this morning just to make sure I hit it all.