Man wrongfully convicted of murder announces plan to sue Chicago police

An exonerated man who was released from jail earlier this year has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city of Chicago.

Lee Harris, 67, was released from Stateville Correctional Center on March 23. Previously, he was wrongfully convicted for the 1989 murder of Dana Feitler, sentenced to 90 years in jail, and spent the last 33 years there. Now, he is suing 10 Chicago police officers over 20 interrogations over a matter of months that put “enormous psychological pressure” on him until he falsely implicated himself in the crime.

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In addition to allegations of a coerced confession, Harris claims that his rights to due process were violated, that he suffered malicious prosecution, and that emotional distress was intentionally inflicted on him. He also claimed that the officers were negligent during the investigation. Harris is requesting a jury trial out of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

“I’ve been unjustly convicted of a crime I had no part in,” Harris said when he was released. “I trusted the wrong people, and that’s what got me a 90-year sentence.”

When Harris was arrested, he left behind a wife and 7-year-old son. Upon his return, his wife had died as a result of her drug addiction following her eviction from the apartment Harris’s lawyers claim Chicago police forced her to move into during the investigation into her husband. Their son was 40 years old by the time Harris was released from jail.

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Feitler, 24, died as a result of a single gunshot to the back of the head. She was in the middle of receiving training at Continental Bank and was planning to begin the MBA program at the University of Chicago when she died.

Meanwhile, CPD Detective Richard Zuley, one of the 10 named in the suit, would go on to become an interrogator at Guantanamo Bay and personally conducted the interrogation of Mohamedou Ould Slahi.