Betty Anne Waters
Attorney and The Film "Conviction” is Based on the true story of Betty Anne Waters
Betty Anne Waters was a single mom who put herself through college and law school while bar tending at night in order to represent her brother Kenny, whom she believed was wrongfully convicted of murder. She was able to find DNA evidence that proved Kenny Waters’ innocence. She owns and Irish pub in Rhode Island…
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Betty Anne Waters was a single mom who put herself through college and law school while bar tending at night in order to represent her brother Kenny, whom she believed was wrongfully convicted of murder. She was able to find DNA evidence that proved Kenny Waters’ innocence.
She owns and Irish pub in Rhode Island and continues to consult on other miscarriage of justice cases, such as the case of Raymond Tempest, Jr., who is believed to have been wrongfully convicted of murdering a 22-year-old former homecoming queen and whose brother and former police officer Gordon Tempest claims to have been wrongfully convicted for perjury to cover up his brother’s involvement. Sadly, her brother Kenny died in an accidental fall six months after his release from prison.
Betty Anne Waters knows well the nightmarish reality of wrongful convictions. In 1983, a Massachusetts jury sentenced her brother, Kenneth Waters, to life in prison for the murder of a woman who lived nearby. Ms. Waters, a high school dropout, resolved to prove her brother’s innocence. She subsequently earned her GED, put herself through undergraduate college and received a law degree – solely to gain her brother’s freedom.
After gaining admission to the bar, Ms. Waters helped track down a long-forgotten box containing evidence that exonerated Kenneth of the crime. The story was dramatized in Conviction, a major motion picture that starred Oscar winner Hilary Swank as Betty Anne.
Oklahoma has had nine exonerations of wrongful convictions since 1996, but not before the innocent people had spent an average of 13 years behind bars. Oklahoma is one of only a handful of states in the nation still without a standing organization to evaluate post-conviction claims of innocence. Throughout the nation, several hundred wrongfully convicted individuals have been exonerated.
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Topics
Viewing of Conviction
This film tells the legal drama of Kenny Waters, who was wrongfully convicted of murdering an elderly woman in his hometown and his sister, who obtained an undergraduate and law degree to only represent one client: her brother.
A Night for the Innocent
Woman Behind the Inspirational Story of Love and Justice
Videos
Conviction
Betty Anne Waters shares her experience watching her life story being made into a film
Betty Anne Waters Speaker - PDA Speakers
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