'Best Christmas Gift Ever': Murder Conviction Based On Blind Witness Overturned, Man Freed

CHICAGO — Darien Harris will be home for the holidays after a murder conviction that put him behind bars for over a decade was overturned following the revelation that the case's star witness was legally blind, according to reports.

“I feel like I’m dreaming,” his mother, Nakesha Harris, said during a press conference streamed Tuesday on Facebook. “It doesn’t feel real. I guess once I hold him in my arms, it’ll be real.”

Rondell Moore was killed and another man was hurt in the 2011 gas station shooting in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, which reported Harris received a 76-year prison sentence.

He had just turned 18 at the time and was a week away from graduating high school, according to Lauren Myerscough-Mueller, an attorney with The Exoneration Project.

“The huge revelation in Darien’s case came after his conviction,” she said at the press conference. “The star eyewitness, the eyewitness that the judge said was honest, was credible, was unimpeachable — he turned out to be blind, legally blind.”

There was no forensics tying Harris to the case, according to Myerscough-Mueller, who said another witness recanted on the stand, citing pressure from police to identify Harris as the shooter, while a third witness insisted it wasn’t Harris.

His conviction was overturned earlier in December and, on Tuesday, prosecutors abandoned plans to retry him and dropped all charges, the Sun-Times reported.

“This is the best Christmas gift ever,” Nakesha Harris said.

Now that he is out of prison, Harris wants to go to law school, according to Myerscough-Mueller.