In 1988, back in Chicago for Thanksgiving while on break from Southern Illinois University, then 22-year-old Brian Beals got into an argument with a local drug dealer. As he drove away from the altercation, bullets fired toward his car hit six-year-old Demetrius Campbell and his mother, Valerie Campbell. The child died from his wounds and despite multiple witnesses indicating another shooter, Beals was convicted and sentenced to 80 years in prison.
This week, after 35 years behind bars, Beals’ conviction was vacated, all charges against him were dismissed, and he was finally freed. His exoneration was made possible through a collaboration between the Illinois Innocence Project and the conviction review unit of the Cook County State’s Attorney's Office.
Beals’ attorney Laura Nirider describes his case as one of the most egregious wrongful convictions she has ever seen and the State Attorney acknowledges the wrongful conviction as a significant miscarriage of justice, impacting both Beals and the victims' family, who’ve still not seen justice in the decades-old murder. Beals is happy to finally be a free man, but so much time has passed, that he’s not sure what he plans to do next. "I'm looking forward to building a life, starting over," he says, "I have to figure out what this world has in it."
Source: CNN