CHICAGO (AP) - A federal jury has awarded $80,000 to a Chicago man who spent 18 years behind bars for a double murder before he was retried and acquitted. The award is a fraction of what he was seeking.
The Chicago Sun-Times (https://bit.ly/R4ZwbL ) reports the award was announced days after jurors determined a former Chicago Police sergeant fabricated evidence against former death row inmate Nathson Fields, or withheld evidence that could exonerate him.
Fields’ attorneys suggested Fields deserved $1 million for every year he was locked up. Fields on Thursday called the award a “travesty’ and urged U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon to investigate. A spokesman for Fardon’s office declined to comment.
Fields was convicted in 1986 of killing two rival gang members. He was released in 2003 and acquitted in a 2009 retrial.
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Information from: Chicago Sun-Times, https://www.suntimes.com/index
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