“You’re free to go, Mr. Whitehead,” Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Jennifer Fitzgerald said with a smile Wednesday morning.
Artis Whitehead, a man who had spent over two decades behind bars for a crime he did not commit, was in the process of hugging and shaking hands with Shelby County Sheriff’s Office deputies when those words left the judge’s mouth.
Though being free for over a month, when Fitzgerald officially overturned his conviction stemming from an attempted robbery and kidnapping at B.B. King’s Blues Club on Beale Street in 2001, Wednesday morning was the day Whitehead was officially declared innocent.
“It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders,” Whitehead told The Commercial Appeal outside the courtroom. “Keep in mind now, I have done 20 years and 11 months for something that I hadn’t done. To get somebody to just look at the facts, just examine all of the information that was there — it was a relief.”
Over the last few months of 2023, Whitehead had been appearing in court wearing a baby blue Tennessee Department of Corrections jumper. Wednesday, he wore a vibrant blend of orange, with alligator skin loafers and red-tinted glasses. There were no tears when he spoke with a soft voice to The CA Wednesday, only a smile.