Darien Harris freed after being exonerated of murder conviction that was based on testimony of blind witness
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Chicago man who has been in prison for 12 years was cleared of murder charges and released from jail on Tuesday.
Darien Harris was convicted largely on the testimony of a witness who turned out to be legally blind, and earlier this month a judge vacated his conviction, but Cook County prosecutors said they planned to retry him. He was then transferred from a downstate prison to Cook County Jail to await that trial.
However, on Tuesday morning, after reviewing the case against Harris, prosecutors agreed to drop all charges. He walked out of jail a free man just after 6 p.m.
"These 12 1/2 years of being gone, it wasn't easy at all," Harris said upon being released. "But I fought, and now I'm here."
Harris called his release the happiest moment of his life. He was beaming from ear to ear as he saw his wife and mother outside the jail.
"I fought. Keep on fighting, everybody," said Harris. "Just keep on fighting – never give up."
Before Harris was freed, his mother expressed her joy too.
"This is the best Christmas gift ever," said his mother, Nakesha Harris. "I feel like I'm dreaming. It doesn't feel real. I guess once I hold him in my arms, it'll be real."
Darien Harris' attorney, Lauren Myerscough-Mueller, said they were "thrilled" that prosecutors agreed to drop charges after reviewing the case over the past couple weeks.
Myerscough-Mueller said Harris now plans to go to law school so he can help others who have been wrongfully convicted clear their names.
"He has had to grow up largely in prison, but he has remained so positive. He is such an inspiration to so many," she said.
Harris, now 30, was only 18 when he was arrested for the 2011 murder of Rondell Moore at a gas station at 66th and Stony Island. He was convicted at a bench trial in 2014, and was sentenced to 76 years in prison.
Harris' lawyers said the prosecution's star witness, Dexter Saffold, was legally blind, a fact they were not aware of at his trial. They said Saffold lied about his vision at trial.
"Justice is supposed to be blind. The eyewitness is not supposed to be blind," attorney Lauren Myerscough-Mueller said. "That is not how you are supposed to convict someone. That is not how the justice system is supposed to work."
CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey spoke to Harris from jail last week.
"Look at the symbol of justice. It's a blindfold with the scale tipped in favor," he said. "That's how we come into the system as Black men. We come into the system blind – not knowing the law, not knowing nothing."
Harris' defense team also has said police misconduct played a role in Harris' conviction.
Myserscough-Mueller claimed that police intimidated another witness in the case. She said the driver who supposedly dropped off Harris at the gas station initially identified him as the gunman, but recanted at trial, accusing police of threatening his newborn baby. That witness later said he never saw Harris.
The only video from the murder shows a shooter, who is hard to make out, get dropped off in a car, run across the scene and then fire shots off camera.
Chicago police arrived to find a man fatally wounded, and Saffold was the main witness.
Saffold picked Harris out of a lineup. The high school senior, who had no criminal record, soon found himself charged and convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 76 years in prison, just a few weeks shy of graduation.
After Harris was convicted, his lawyers discovered unrelated federal disability lawsuit filed by Saffold years earlier in 2003 in which two separate doctors attested to the fact that Saffold is legally blind and had been for a least a decade before the shooting.
That fact never came up during Harris' trial.
"They didn't do anything wrong because they didn't know. I didn't have to tell nobody about my medical history," Saffold said in 2019.
Saffold spoke to CBS 2 under the condition that his face be hidden. He said he stands by his testimony that he saw Darien Harris pull the trigger.
When asked if he is legally blind he responded, "I got glaucoma due to an eye disease."
He confirmed the medical records obtained by CBS 2 were authentic. This, again, was four years ago.
"We hope that moving forward, it won't take so long for some of these reviews to happen," said Myerscough-Miller, "because Darien, that whole time, since 2019 - that's four additional years - has been wrongly incarcerated."
Meanwhile, a familiar face was present at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse Tuesday to support Harris. Jimmy Soto had his own conviction vacated last week. Soto, 62, and his cousin, David Ayala, 60, were tried and convicted before a single jury of the Aug. 16, 1981, shooting that killed Julie Limas and Hector Valeriano in Pietrowksi Park at 31st Street and Keeler Avenue. Their convictions were vacated last week.
Soto and Harris were both imprisoned at Stateville Correctional Center, and followed each other's cases.
"I want to pay it forward. I want to help those like Darien and others," said Soto. "I didn't do anything on this case, but I know that there are so many more in the system who are wrongfully convicted."
Like Harris, Soto plans to become a lawyer so he can help others who were wrongfully convicted.
"I hope that Darien is able to go to law school and fight these cases, so that he can help other people in his position," said Myerscough-Mueller.
Hickey explained Tuesday afternoon how she was first tipped off to Harris' case, and what led her to the eyewitness whose admission ended up changing everything.
"It's interesting – I do get a lot of jail mail. I'll be honest about that. Darien sent me a letter four years ago. But there was something in his letter that just – I felt like I needed to respond. He said that he had been, you know, convicted of this murder that he had nothing to do with, and that he had evidence of his innocence. And I said: 'Sure, send me what you've got. I'd be happy to take a look,'" Hickey said. "And what he sent me really stunned me. He had medical records of the eyewitness in his case, where two experts – two doctors – had reviewed this man's case and turned him legally blind. They used those medical records in federal lawsuits that this eyewitness had filed. So I tracked the eyewitness down, and he was able to talk to me on camera about the fact that he never disclosed that to the people who needed to know it – and obviously, that was a huge game-changer in this case."
Community activist Ja'Mal Green gave CBS 2's Hickey accolades for her efforts.
"I just want to give a shout-out to Megan on this, for some great investigative reporting that helped this case – with going to interview the blind witness," Green said.
And although Harris has missed a lot these past 12 years, his mother says that's not a concern right now.
"We're just worried about the present and the future," said Nakesha Harris. "The past is already gone."