Darien Harris has been released after spending 12 years in prison over the murder of Rondel Moore after he was found to have been wrongfully convicted of the crime.
The news of Harris' release came on Tuesday and all charges against him have been dropped by prosecutors. In the evening of that same day, he walked out of custody a free man and his mother, Nakesha Harris, was eager to see her son.
Darien Harris Released
Harris was only 17 years old when he was arrested and later convicted for the murder of Moore. Moore's killing came in 2011 when he was at a gas station at 66th Place and Stony Island Avenue.
The star shooter for the prosecutors said that he saw the shooter and identified him to be Harris. However, it was later revealed that this key witness is actually legally blind. The eyewitness was said to be credible, honest, and unimpeachable.
Lauren Myerscough-Mueller, an attorney for the Exoneration Project, said that this fact was only learned after Harris' conviction. On Tuesday, a Cook County judge officially dropped the charges against Harris, which paved the way for the now-30-year-old to become free, as per ABC7 Chicago.
Before her son's release, Harris' mother said that the development did not feel real, adding that she would believe it after she held her son in her arms. Harris' release also ends his 76-year prison sentence.
In 2019, Harris' family and legal team started to push for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office to review the case. This was after the fact that the prosecution's key witness was found to be legally blind.
Harris' mother asked Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx to throw out her son's conviction based on the revelation. On Tuesday, she said that when the question came up in court, the witness said that his eyesight was "okay."
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Rondel Moore Murder
The Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School chose to pick up Harris' case and later argued that the prosecution's key witness suffered from advanced glaucoma at the time of the murder in which Harris was convicted. It added that no physical evidence actually tied Harris to the killing, according to WGNTV.
Myerscough-Mueller added that they had experts who looked at the records to find what the witness could actually see, which was nothing. A Cook County judge ordered to vacate Harris' murder conviction on Dec. 5, as prosecutors considered whether or not they would re-try the case.
The Exoneration Project attorney said that Harris had to grow up largely in prison but was able to remain positive in life. The key witness in the case was identified as Dexter Saffold, and his testimony was the primary basis of Judge Nicholas Ford's ruling against Harris.
At the time of the initial trial, Saffold testified that he was riding his motorized scooter north on Stony Island Avenue near the gas station when he heard gunshots. He said that he then saw someone roughly 18 feet from him aiming a handgun at a person near a car that had its hood up.
The witness noted that he could see the muzzle flashes and then heard more than two gunshots. Saffold added that the shooter bumped into him while trying to get away from the scene of the crime and nearly dropped the gun as he was trying to put it inside his pocket, said the Chicago Tribune.
