A Chicago man who spent 12 years in prison for murder before he was exonerated when investigators found out that the key witness had been legally blind is now suing the city and police department.
Darien Harris was sentenced to 76 years in prison after being convicted in 2014 for a fatal shooting at a South Side gas station in 2011 when he was just 18.
He was freed in December after the Exoneration Project showed that the eyewitness had lied about his eyesight, having been declared legally blind with advanced glaucoma nine years before picking Harris out of a lineup.
In his lawsuit, Harris, now 31, alleged that police fabricated evidence and compelled witnesses into making false statements, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday.
Harris says that although he is now free, he has had a rough time finding his place in the world without help.
“I don’t have any financial help. I’m still (treated like) a felon, so I can’t get a good job. It’s hard for me to get into school,” he told the Tribune. “I’ve been so lost.”
“I feel like they took a piece of me that is hard for me to get back,” he added.
Harris was an 18-year-old high school senior at the time of his arrest, which came after the legally blind eyewitness picked him out of a police lineup and identified him in court.
The witness claimed he was riding his motorized scooter near the gas station when he heard gunshots and saw a person, who he identified as Harris, aiming a handgun.
While Harris’ trial attorney at the time asked the witness if his diabetes affected his vision, the witness denied having any vision problems — despite having been declared legally blind nine years earlier.
At the time, a gas station attendant also testified that Harris wasn’t the shooter.
The Exoneration Project, a Chicago-based organization fighting for the rights of the wrongly convicted, has helped over 200 people since 2009.
With Post wires.
