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Homicide conviction overturned as a result of eyewitness…
Prison Justice
Homicide conviction overturned as a result of eyewitness was legally blind
December 7, 2023, 9:57 am CST
Choose Diana Kenworthy of Cook dinner County, Illinois, speaks throughout a sentencing listening to on the George N. Leighton Prison Courtroom Constructing in Chicago in July 2021. Photograph by Jose M. Osorio/The Chicago Tribune through the Related Press.
A choose in Chicago overturned a homicide conviction Tuesday after protection attorneys produced proof that an eyewitness who testified through the 2014 trial was legally blind.
Choose Diana Kenworthy of Cook dinner County, Illinois, overturned the conviction of Darien Harris, who was 18 when he was accused in a 2011 fuel station taking pictures that killed one man and wounded one other.
The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Solar-Instances have protection.
An Injustice Watch investigation reported in 2019 that witness Dexter Saffold had been declared legally blind in 2002 due to his glaucoma. Throughout Harris’ trial, Saffold stated he was driving his motorized scooter residence from a fast-food restaurant when he heard gunshots and noticed the shooter, who ran into Saffold as he ran away. He recognized Harris in a lineup and at trial.
Harris was convicted and sentenced to 76 years in jail. On Tuesday, prosecutors agreed that Harris’ conviction must be vacated however stated they deliberate to strive him once more.
Prosecutors stated there was one other witness, a person who stated he drove Harris to the fuel station earlier than the taking pictures. The person later recanted, saying police had pressured him to establish Harris. The witness is not alive.
A 3rd witness, a clerk at a fuel station, has stated he acknowledged the shooter, and it wasn’t Harris, based on protection attorneys. The clerk was not known as as a witness on the trial.
The precise shooter, based on Harris’ attorneys, could have been an adolescent who later died in one other fuel station taking pictures.
Harris is represented by Lauren Myerscough-Mueller, an lawyer with the Exoneration Challenge on the College of Chicago Regulation College.
Kenworthy refused to launch Harris as he awaits a brand new trial.
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