A man’s gas station murder conviction is getting thrown out because of the revelation that the key eyewitness was legally blind. Even so, Cook County prosecutors who agreed to vacate the guilty verdict now plan on retrying the defendant Darien Harris, 30.
Judge Diana Kenworthy of the Circuit Court of Cook County ruled that Harris must stay behind bars in light of the serious nature of the case and the decades he faces in prison if convicted again, according to The Chicago Sun Times.
Someone — if not Harris — fatally shot Rondell Moore and injured gas station mechanic Quincy Woulard at a BP station on S. Stony Island Avenue on June 7, 2011, in Chicago, Illinois. Moore had arrived at the station with his brother, Ronald Moore, due to car trouble.
Prosecutors reportedly claim Harris, then 18, stepped out of a Lexus and began shooting, striking Rondell Moore three times in the back, and Woulard in the chest and under the man’s right arm.
A court vacated the conviction of Darien Harris, pictured in inset, for allegedly murdering Rondell Moore and injuring Quincy Woulard at a BP gas station, but prosecutors want to retry him in spite of the revelation that the key eyewitness was legally blind. (Mug shot: Cook County Jail; screenshot of gas station: WLS)
The key witness, Dexter Saffold, testified at the 2014 bench trial about returning home on a motorized scooter, claiming to be perhaps 18 feet away when the gunfire started, according to the Sun-Times. He testified that the shooter, running away, bumped into him and almost dropped the gun. He pointed out Harris in court as the killer.
The defense at the time reportedly brought up that Saffold had diabetes and asked if he had vision trouble. He reportedly testified, “Yes, I do,” then denied having any problems seeing.
But it turns out that Saffold had reportedly received Social Security disability benefits because of his vision as far back as 2002 — almost a full decade before the gas station slaying.
A doctor diagnosed him with having 20/400 vision in both eyes, with a field of vision at just 10 degrees. His vision issues were noted in lawsuits Saffold has reportedly filed against colleges, a landlord, and two former employers, according to the Sun Times. For example, he filed a federal complaint in 2012 claiming that Wilbur Wright College did not give him accommodations for his sight, causing him to struggle in class. He reportedly settled out of court about three months before testifying in Harris’ case.
Harris’ defense asked the Cook County state’s attorney’s conviction integrity unit to look at the case, but the office chose to do nothing after reviewing it, said defense lawyer Lauren Myerscough-Mueller, according to the Sun Times.
At the time of trial, neither the defense nor Cook County Circuit Judge Nicholas Ford, the latter of whom found Harris guilty in trial and determined Saffold was being honest, reportedly knew about Saffold’s legal blindness.
“They didn’t do anything wrong because they didn’t know,” Saffold told WCBS in a 2019 interview about his witness testimony. “I didn’t have to tell nobody about my medical history.”
Asked if he was legally blind, he reportedly said had glaucoma due to an eye disease. He maintained that Harris was the shooter.
Myerscough-Mueller welcomed news of the decision, but voiced surprise that prosecutors are retrying the case.
“There’s significant evidence of Darien’s innocence that makes it so that we’re surprised that the state is retrying the case,” she said, according to WCBS.
Prosecutors had maintained that another witness, Aaron Jones, drove Harris to the scene and identified him as the shooter. Jones recanted at trial, however, saying that cops threatened him into naming Harris as the shooting. He reportedly has died since then.
The defense is also attacking the state’s case from other vantage points. For example, a gas station employee had described recognizing the shooter, but he had not been called to trial. He maintained it was another man who he believed had been stealing something and who had threatened to “blow his head off.” He reportedly did not identify Harris when shown a lineup, and he claimed that cops tried to pressure him into identifying Harris as the shooter.
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