A Cook County decide overturned the homicide conviction Tuesday of a person who was discovered responsible in a deadly capturing at a South Side gasoline station based on the testimony of an eyewitness who turned out to be legally blind.
Darien Harris was an 18-year-old highschool senior with a clear felony report when prosecutors charged him in an ambush-style capturing that left one man useless and one other significantly injured in June 2011.
Now 30, Harris has lengthy maintained his innocence, saying he was at house watching LeBron James play within the NBA finals between the Miami Heat and the Dallas Mavericks. But a now-retired decide discovered Harris responsible in 2014 and despatched him to jail for 76 years.
More than 4 years in the past, his authorized crew, household and pals started urging the conviction integrity unit of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to take one other take a look at the case. Among different arguments, they stated the important thing witness had didn’t confide in the trial decide that the witness was legally blind due to his glaucoma.
Though these efforts didn’t yield speedy outcomes, Cook County prosecutors agreed with Harris’ post-conviction request to vacate his conviction and sentence, clearing the best way for a brand new trial. On Tuesday, Cook County Judge Diana Kenworthy granted Harris’ request, saying merely: “So we are going to start over.”
The decide, citing the intense nature of the fees, declined to free Harris whereas he awaits his new trial. Harris is charged with first-degree homicide, tried first-degree homicide and aggravated battery with a firearm.
Shackled on the ankles and wearing blue jail garb, Harris didn’t converse throughout the temporary court docket listening to. He waved to his spouse and mom and an uncle seated within the courtroom gallery earlier than being led again to jail.
His mom, Nakesha Harris, instructed reporters afterward she is disillusioned prosecutors determined to retry the case.
“They’re wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” she stated. “We’re retrying a case with no physical (or) DNA evidence. All the witnesses recanted (and) changed stories, and the judge based his verdict off the testimony of a blind man.”
Members of the victims’ households didn’t attend Tuesday’s court docket listening to.
The decide who discovered Harris responsible in 2014 was unaware throughout the trial of the witness’s medical prognosis, in line with Harris’ lawyer, Lauren Myerscough-Mueller, who stated in court docket filings that Harris was wrongfully convicted primarily based on mistaken eyewitness testimonies and with out bodily proof tying him to the crime.
The sufferer within the capturing, 23-year-old Rondell Moore, had pulled right into a BP gasoline station in Woodlawn due to automotive troubles after 8 p.m. on June 7, 2011.
Moore put up the automotive’s hood to examine the issue, assisted by a neighborhood mechanic who arrived on the station on his bike shortly afterward. Moore’s older brother and a pal additionally had been there.
The station’s surveillance system didn’t seize the capturing, however prosecutors stated the video did present a person strolling away from a black Lexus and across the gasoline station constructing towards the realm the place the capturing occurred, then operating away shortly afterward.
The video confirmed a person whose skinny construct and brief coiffure usually match Harris, however the suspect’s face was not seen.
Moore, who was shot 3 times, ran from the gasoline station and died in a close-by car parking zone. The 51-year-old mechanic survived bullet wounds to his again and an arm.
Harris was arrested days later. He opted to have a decide quite than a jury determine his destiny at trial. At the time, Cook County Judge Nicholas Ford stated he primarily based his ruling totally on the testimony of Dexter Saffold, a person who testified that he witnessed the capturing whereas on his method house from a fast-food restaurant.
Saffold testified that he was using his motorized scooter north on Stony Island Avenue close to the gasoline station when he heard gunshots and noticed somebody about 18 ft from him holding a darkish handgun. Saffold testified he noticed the shooter aiming the gun at an individual close to a automotive with its hood up. He might see the muzzle flashes and heard greater than two gunshots, Saffold testified. He additionally stated the shooter ran into him whereas operating away, practically dropping the gun whereas attempting to place it right into a pocket.
Saffold picked Harris out of a police lineup and in addition recognized him in court docket throughout the trial.
Saffold’s eyesight got here up solely briefly throughout the trial, court docket data present. Harris’ lawyer requested Saffold if his diabetes affected his imaginative and prescient. He replied sure, then paused and adjusted his reply, denying he had imaginative and prescient issues.
But Saffold’s physician had deemed him legally blind some 9 years earlier than the homicide, data present. As a part of Harris’ 2022 post-conviction petition, his authorized crew cited medical data relationship to 2002 that Saffold had publicly filed in numerous lawsuits concerning his incapacity. Harris’ attorneys additionally introduced to the court docket an professional opinion from an ophthalmologist concerning Saffold’s impaired imaginative and prescient.
“He has very, very poor vision,” Myerscough-Mueller instructed reporters Tuesday. “He really couldn’t see anything.”
In rendering his responsible verdict in 2014, Judge Ford stated he discovered Saffold credible. Ford referred to as him an “honest witness” and stated he’d given “unblemished” testimony. The “inconsistencies” within the testimony didn’t rise to the extent of affordable doubt, stated the decide, unaware of Saffold’s medical prognosis. Saffold couldn’t be reached for remark Tuesday.
The Harris case was the topic of a 2019 investigation by the native journalism group Injustice Watch.
Though prosecutors keep they’ve credible proof from different eyewitnesses that time to Harris’ guilt, Myerscough-Mueller alleged police misconduct performed a task in these identifications. She stated the alleged getaway driver, who has since died, took the stand throughout Harris’ trial and recanted his preliminary identification of Harris. He stated Harris was by no means in his automotive and that law enforcement officials coerced him into making a false identification, threatening to “put (him) in jail for the rest of (his) life” if he didn’t cooperate, in line with court docket data.
The police detectives additionally testified, denying they pressured the person to determine Harris. Ford famous the person’s recantation is perhaps attributable to concern quite than the reality. Though prosecutors aren’t required to supply a motive, they theorized throughout the trial that there was unhealthy blood between Darien Harris and the Moore brothers.
Harris’ attorneys additionally stated in court docket data that they’ve uncovered proof figuring out the precise shooter as one other teenager who was killed a number of months later, additionally throughout an ambush-style capturing at a South Side gasoline station.
Myerscough-Mueller, an lawyer with the Exoneration Project on the University of Chicago Law School, stated a gasoline station worker who didn’t testify throughout Harris’ 2014 trial has recognized that man — not Harris — because the shooter within the earlier incident. The worker alleged police tried to coerce him into making a false identification, in line with the lawyer.
In a press release, Foxx’s workplace stated prosecutors didn’t object to vacating Harris’ conviction “due to shifts in witness testimony and available evidence, in the interest of justice and to ensure that the principles of fairness and due process are upheld.”
“This decision is not made lightly, but with a profound sense of responsibility towards the integrity of our legal system and the community we serve, and securing justice for the victim,” the assertion learn. “We are committed to a fair and just resolution of this case, guided by the evidence and the law.”
Prosecutors pledged to pursue a brand new trial.
The defendant’s spouse, Jessica Harris, additionally attended Tuesday’s court docket listening to. She instructed reporters they married greater than a 12 months in the past. She and his household repeatedly visited him whereas he was incarcerated in downstate Menard Correctional Center, they stated.
“That’s a good thing about Darien. He’s very positive,” his spouse stated. “You will never see him not smiling. So he has very high hopes for his case.”
He’ll now be held on the Cook County Jail pending his new trial. Harris is due again in court docket Dec. 19, when a trial date could also be set.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com