A Chicago man convicted of murder based in part on testimony from a legally blind eyewitness is suing the city and the police department.
A judge convicted Darien Harris in 2014 in connection with a fatal shooting at a South Side gas station in 2011. He was 12 years into a 76-year prison sentence when he was freed in December after The Exoneration Project showed that the eyewitness had advanced glaucoma and lied about his eyesight issues. Harris was 30 years old when he went free.
Harris filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in April alleging police fabricated evidence and coerced witnesses into making false statements, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday. He told the newspaper that he is still struggling to put his life back together.
“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 said. “I’ve been so lost. … I feel like they took a piece of me that is hard for me to get back.”
I know this isn’t the point of the article but 76 years seems like an absurdly long sentence. I just checked and the average time served for murder is 15 years.
That average probably includes white people murderers getting a slap on the wrist. I wonder what it is if you just take the average of black/brown people’s sentences for murder
Seems to be about 250 months or 21 years for black people.
https://www.lawinfo.com/resources/criminal-defense/sentencing/sentencing-statistics/are-there-racial-disparities-in-sentencing.html
Most sentences are absurdly long today. Too many things that would have been a citation 200 years ago are felonies today.
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