Chicago man acquitted after 12 years in prison sues city and police

A Chicago man who was exonerated in 2023 after investigators found evidence that key testimony in his murder trial came from a legally blind eyewitness is suing the city and police

The civil rights violation lawsuit, filed last month and first reported on Monday by the Chicago Tribune, says Darien Harris’ wrongful conviction was due to the “egregious misconduct” of Chicago police, who falsified evidence and coerced witnesses into giving false testimony. Harris was an 18-year-old high school student when police arrested him in connection with a fatal shooting at a South Side gas station in 2011.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, a judge convicted Harris in 2014 of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and aggravated assault with a firearm. Harris, now 31, had served more than 12 years of a 76-year sentence when he was acquitted last December after the Exoneration Project showed that the eyewitness had advanced glaucoma at the time of the shooting and lied about being legally blind.

Although Harris earned a high school diploma (GED) and worked while incarcerated, he told the Chicago Tribune that he has struggled to get his life back on track since his release.

“I don’t have any financial help. I’m still treated like a felon and can’t get a good job because of it. I’m having a hard time going to school,” Harris told the newspaper. “I was so lost. … I feel like they took a piece of me that I’m having a hard time getting back.”

Harris is seeking compensation from the city of Chicago and several Chicago Police Department officers involved in the case.

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Lawsuit: Investigations against Darien Harris were “systematic police misconduct”

Harris’ conviction was secured “almost exclusively” by the testimony of the legally blind eyewitness, whom the court considered a credible witness, the Exoneration Project said.

The witness had given authorities varying statements “with numerous inconsistencies” and identified Harris in both a photo and live lineup, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. He testified before a grand jury that he was riding a motor scooter when he saw the shooting and tried to follow the gunman.

During cross-examination, Harris’ defense attorney asked the witness if his diabetes had affected his vision. The witness said he had diabetes but denied having any vision problems.

But in February 2022, two attorneys filed a motion to overturn Harris’ conviction, finding that the witness was blind and had lied about it in his testimony, the Register said. “In addition to his medical condition, which severely limited his visual acuity, surveillance video of the crime shows that the witness was much farther away from the crime scene than he claimed,” the Exoneration Project said.

The organization added that police misconduct was a factor in Harris’ wrongful conviction. During Harris’ trial, the alleged getaway driver in the shooting recanted his original identity and said police officers coerced him into a false identification. Another witness also claimed police officers tried to coerce her.

“(Harris’) wrongful conviction is not an isolated incident,” the lawsuit states. “Rather, it is part of a pattern and practice of systematic police misconduct at Area Two Police Headquarters, where officers were trained to falsify evidence and withhold exculpatory evidence in order to obtain wrongful convictions.”

Relief throughout the USA

Since 1989, there have been more than 3,500 exonerations in which exonerees spent more than 31,900 years in prison for crimes they did not commit, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. The registry listed 153 exonerations that occurred in 2023.

“At least 118 exonerations in 2023 involved official misconduct,” the registry’s annual report states. “75 homicides – 85% of homicide exonerations in 2023 – were affected by official misconduct.”

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