CHICAGO – A federal jury has awarded a former Chicago street gang member $22 million after he claimed two city police officers framed him for a 1984 double murder.
The jury's civil trial award was announced Thursday after two-and-a-half days of deliberations. Former death row inmate Nathson Fields was convicted in 1986 of killing two rival gang members. The one-time El Rukn member was released in 2003 and acquitted in a 2009 retrial.
The latest trial was a court-ordered do-over of a 2014 civil trial that ended with Fields receiving $80,000.
Fields claimed the officers violated his civil rights by withholding evidence from defense attorneys that could have pointed away from him as the killer. City attorneys have maintained that Fields is guilty of the killings and deny evidence was concealed from him.
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