Chicago City Council to weigh $13 million settlement with man wrongfully convicted of murder
Attorneys for the city of Chicago are recommending that the City Council approve a $13 million settlement with a man who spent 26 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1994.
Arnold Day was 18 years old when he was arrested for the murder and attempted armed robbery of Jerrod Irving in 1991. According to his lawsuit against the city and eight police officers, he was convicted in 1994 based on two false confessions and a fabricated witness statement obtained through coercion.
Irving was shot and killed on May 17, 1991, while sitting on the steps of a home in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Police questioned one witness for more than 12 hours, but she never identified Day as the shooter or otherwise being involved with the murder.
The lawsuit claims, while police were investigating another armed robbery and murder months after Irving was killed, police "used physically and psychologically abusive tactics" while questioning a 15-year-old suspect to fabricate evidence against Day in the murder of Rafael Garcia.
Police then used that fabricated evidence to coerce another person into falsely identifying Day as Irving's killer, according to Day's lawsuit.
Officers later arrested Day for Irving's murder and repeatedly threatened him when he denied any involvement in Irving's death. The lawsuit claims officers chained him to a wall, deprived him of food and water, would not let him use the bathroom, and denied him access to a lawyer or the ability to contact his family.
The lawsuit also claims officers choked Day and slammed him against a wall, eventually coercing him into confessing to killing Irving and Garcia.
Day's attorneys claimed the officers' misconduct "was objectively unreasonable and was undertaken intentionally, with malice and reckless indifference to the rights of others, and with total disregard for the truth."
Day was convicted and sentenced to 60 years in prison for Irving's murder in 1994, but maintained that officers coerced him into signing two false confessions. In 2017, the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission determined ther was credible evidence that Day was tortured into a false confession. In 2018, his convictions were vacated and the charges against him were dismissed. In 2019, he was granted a certificate of innocence.
In a separate trial, Day was acquitted of Garcia's murder in 1993.
The city's Law Department has recommended a $13 million settlement with Day, and the City Council Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on the proposed settlement on Monday. If approved, a final vote by the full City Council could come on Wednesday.
