The witness was allegedly suffering from advanced glaucoma at the time of the crime, severely limiting visibility. Surveillance video from the scene also revealed the eyewitness was much farther away than he initially claimed to be, according to the Exoneration Project.
A Chicago man who spent more than a decade in prison after he was found guilty of murder primarily based on the testimony of a “blind eyewitness” will get a new trial, his attorney said.
Darien Harris, 30, was convicted following a 2011 shooting that left 23-year-old Rondell Moore dead and another seriously injured, the Chicago Tribune reported. Harris, who is Black, was 18 at the time and has always maintained his innocence.
On Tuesday, a Cook County judge vacated Harris’ conviction, the Exoneration Project said. Judge Diana Kenworthy said it was best to “start over,” according to the newspaper.
For anyone who’s isn’t aware eye witness testimony is routinely wrong. It is far from a fool proof form of evidence.
when I was taking a law class in person our professor had arranged for a friend of his to walk into the classroom, shout “BANG” and then leave. After that happened, we finished the rest of the 3 hour night class, and at the end of the class asked us all to write down a description of that person and hand it in. Next week, he had compiled all the descriptions into a tag cloud of characteristics that we as eye witnesses had “testified” to. We couldn’t even agree on this person’s presented race and gender. We literally had people saying it was a black man and people saying it was a white woman. Eyewitness testimony isn’t just far from foolproof, it should probably be ignored in most cases.