Exoneration Project Client Gets New Trial
Man gets new trial after being convicted of murder based on testimony of blind witness
A Cook County judge overturned the murder conviction Tuesday of a man who was found guilty in a fatal shooting at a South Side gas station primarily based on the testimony of an eyewitness who turned out to be legally blind.
Darien Harris was an 18-year-old high school senior with a clean criminal record when prosecutors charged him in an ambush-style shooting that left one man dead and another seriously injured in June 2011.
Now 30, Harris has long maintained his innocence, saying he was at home watching LeBron James play in the NBA finals between the Miami Heat and the Dallas Mavericks. But a now-retired judge found Harris guilty in 2014 and sent him to prison for 76 years.
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