After serving 12 years in prison for murder and then being exonerated after investigators found that a key witness was legally blind, a Chicago man is now suing the city and police department.
Darien Harris was convicted in 2014 and sentenced to 76 years in prison for shooting and killing an 18-year-old man at a South Side gas station in 2011.
Harris was released in December after Project Exoneration found witnesses had lied about his eyesight and he had been diagnosed with advanced glaucoma that made him legally blind nine years before his arrest.
Harris, now 31, alleged in the lawsuit that police fabricated evidence and coerced witnesses into making false statements. The Chicago Tribune reported Monday.
Though she is now free, Harris said she would have struggled to find her place in the world without help.
“I have no financial support, I can’t get a good job, I have trouble going to school because I’m still being treated like a felon,” he told the Tribune. “I feel lost.”
“I feel like they took away a part of me that will be hard to get back,” he added.
Harris was an 18-year-old high school senior at the time of his arrest, but was arrested after a blind witness recognized him in a police mugshot and identified him in court.
A witness claimed he was riding a motorized scooter near a gas station when he heard gunfire and saw a person he identified as Harris pointing a handgun.
At the time, Harris’ lawyers asked the witness whether his diabetes was affecting his eyesight, and the witness denied having any problems with his eyesight, despite having been declared legally blind nine years earlier.
A gas station attendant also testified at the time that Harris was not the shooter.
The Exoneration Project, a Chicago-based organization that fights for the rights of people who have been wrongfully convicted, has helped more than 200 people since 2009.
With post wire.
