Darien Harris was an 18-year-old high school student when he was charged in connection with the death of a man at a Chicago gas station in 2011. He was found guilty of murder based in large part on testimony from an eyewitness who turned out to be legally blind, the Washington Post reports. Harris spent more than 12 years behind bars before his conviction was vacated last year. Now 31, he is suing the city of Chicago, the Chicago Police Department and seven officers involved in the case. The federal complaint was first reported by the Chicago Tribune. The suit alleges that police withheld knowledge of the key witness’s visual impairment and that they “fabricated evidence, including false witness statements and identifications through such tactics as coercion, threats, fact-feeding, and promises of leniency.”
Harris was convicted in the murder of Rondell Moore, who was fatally shot at a gas station. Harris told the court that he was not at the gas station at the time. He was sentenced to 76 years after a man who said he was a witness to the shooting identified Harris in a lineup and again in court. While he was behind bars, Harris and his supporters hired a private investigator, who unearthed a housing discrimination lawsuit in 2003 in which the witness said he had glaucoma. A letter from a doctor attached to the suit also said the witness was legally blind and permanently disabled. Police were aware of his impairment, the suit alleges. Harris successfully filed a post-conviction petition, backed by the Exoneration Project, a free legal clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, and he was released in December.