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A wrongly convicted man who had a murder conviction hanging over his head, can now apply for a certificate of innocence after a judge threw out his murder conviction.
READ MORE: Man awarded $21 million after wrongfully imprisoned 12 years
On Friday, Demetrius Johnson, 44, left the criminal courthouse smiling broadly after attending a hearing to have a wrongful murder conviction removed from his record, The Chicago Sun-Times reports. He was released from prison in 2004 but served 12 years for a crime that he said he never committed.
A judge agreed and Johnson has now become the 20th person to have his murder conviction exonerated, after more than 50 people accused disgraced retired Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara of framing them for murders, the report says.
In November, a Cook County judge vacated his conviction. The State’s Attorney’s Office decided against pursuing a retrial and subsequently dropped all charges.
“It’s an out-of-body experience,” Johnson said after the hearing. “I felt like I had a gorilla on my back.”
Johnson, who was 15, was charged with a 1991 murder in Wicker Park. But earlier this year, it was revealed facts related to the case from an eyewitness who fingered another suspect, had been withheld from prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Now the freed man and father of four can apply for a certificate of innocence. The conviction had haunted Johnson and recently he couldn’t even pass a background check to coach his 10-year-old son’s basketball team.
“We were preparing for a re-trial,” Johnson’s attorney Joshua Tepfer said. “We appreciate the state’s attorney making this decision before the holidays.”
READ MORE: ‘It’s finally over’: Chicago man exonerated in murder conviction tied to corrupt cop
“I feel awesome because really for my whole life I thought my dad was guilty of this crime, and the whole time he was innocent and it messed up my life a lot,” said his son, Demetrius Johnson Jr., 28.
Earlier this year a man was award $21 million after serving 11 ½ years of a 30-year prison sentence based on claims that Detective Guevara coerced witnesses to implicate him in a murder.
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