A wrongful conviction lawsuit has been filed against the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office in the case of a man who spent 29 years in prison and was later exonerated.
Jerry Herrington was 16 years old when he was accused of the murder of an 18-year-old woman in 1991 following his arrest for disorderly conduct.
He was tried as an adult.
He was 17 when he went to prison.
“This pattern and practice of fabrication, of torture, of lying, of creating false narratives, coercing testimony, having people sign false confessions,” said his attorney, Antonio Romanucci.
Another attorney, Brian Eldridge, said, "our complaint includes detailed allegations of fabricated evidence, falsified police reports as plain as day, witness coercion and manipulation, physical abuse and brutality."
Herrington was sent to Stateville Correctional Center.
“I had to grow up in that place, my teens, my twenties, my thirties,” he said “during a news conference with his attorneys.
I got out at forty-five, but I kept fighting.”
He said he almost lost his life in prison.
He said someone needs to be held accountable for what he went through.
That would be the taxpayers, should there be a large monetary award.
Herrington is the son of a police officer. His father served in another jurisdiction.
Attorneys with the Innocence Project took his case, resulting in his exoneration.
“The judge who sentenced me and told be he wanted me to die in the penitentiary, when I got exonerated, the judge apologized, told me he was sorry.”