In one of the highest awards of its type in U.S. history, a 12-member federal jury today following a month-long trial found the City of Chicago and its current and former police officers liable for $22 million in compensatory damages and $40,000 in punitive damages.
Fields spent the majority of his 18 years in prison on death row and was nearly put to death five times. Fields fought to prove his innocence for three decades.
At issue in Fields’ trial was the Chicago Police Department’s policy and practice of using so-called “street files” to suppress investigative materials favorable to criminal defendants.
The jury determined that both the individual defendant police officers and the City of Chicago violated Fields’ constitutional right to due process.
Nathson Fields is represented by Jon Loevy, Steve Art and Anand Swaminathan, Sam Heppell, Tony Balkissoon and Katie Roche of Loevy & Loevy Attorneys at Law, and Candace Gorman of the Law Offices of H. Candace Gorman.
Loevy & Loevy is one of the nation’s largest civil rights law firms, and over the past decade has won more multi-million dollar jury verdicts than any other civil rights law firm in the entire country. Last November, Loevy & Loevy successfully obtained the release of the dashcam video of Laquan McDonald’s shooting death at the hands of Chicago police.
