A fed­er­al jury award­ed $22 mil­lion in dam­ages to Nathson Fields (pic­tured), who was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of a gang-relat­ed mur­der and sen­tenced to death in 1986. Fields was exon­er­at­ed in 2009. The jury found that two Chicago police detec­tives vio­lat­ed Fields’ civ­il rights by hid­ing crit­i­cal evi­dence that sug­gest­ed he did not com­mit the crime of which he was con­vict­ed. For many years, the Chicago police depart­ment main­tained a prac­tice of keep­ing secret ​“street files” on poten­tial sus­pects. That pol­i­cy was offi­cial­ly ter­mi­nat­ed in 1983, after expo­sure by a whistle­blow­er. The secret files were hid­den in a stor­age base­ment where they would not be sub­ject to sub­poe­na. Despite the depart­men­t’s claims that it was no longer keep­ing such files, the jury found that at the time Fields was arrest­ed and charged, the city had a pat­tern and prac­tice of keep­ing the secret street files in homi­cide inves­ti­ga­tions even though it had offi­cial­ly dis­avowed the prac­tice. Hundreds of street files were dis­cov­ered in 2011, includ­ing one relat­ing to Fields. Fields’ file con­tained hand­writ­ten notes on alter­nate sus­pects and line­up cards that had been with­held from his attor­neys at his tri­al. In addi­tion to the $22 mil­lion award for which the city of Chicago is liable, the jury also assessed a total of $40,000 in puni­tive dam­ages against Sgt. David O’Callaghan and Lt. Joseph Murphy per­son­al­ly, which the men may be required to pay them­selves. At a press con­fer­ence after the rul­ing, Fields described the despair he had felt dur­ing his time on death row, espe­cial­ly as he saw oth­er pris­on­ers tak­en to their exe­cu­tions. ​“I had times that I was under so much stress I did­n’t think I could take any more, so this day is very hum­bling, and I’m so hap­py,” he said.

(J. Meisner and E. Cherney, ​“Jury awards $22 mil­lion in dam­ages to wrong­ly con­vict­ed ex-El Rukn,” Chicago Tribune, December 15, 2016.) See Innocence.

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