A Chicago Man’s Sentence Has Been Vacated After Serving 28 Years In Prison In Wrongful Murder Conviction

A Chicago man convicted of murder when he was 17 has had those charges dismissed.

According to CBS News, David Wright was accused and convicted of the murder of his 16-year-old friend Tyrone Rockett and 26-year-old Robert Smith in 1994, resulting in Wright spending the next 28 years in prison.

Cook County prosecutors have recently dismissed murder charges against Wright. CBS News reports that Chicago detectives forced Wright to confess to the murders. After nearly three decades in prison, Wright had his sentence vacated.

“It feels good, but at the same time, it’s questionable. For the last 30 years you’ve done implemented in two families’ minds that I did something that I didn’t. So how do you change that now?” Wright said to CBS News.

Wright told CBS News that he would focus on reconstructing his life, connecting with family, and helping those serving prison time for offenses they didn’t commit.

In 1994, Smith and Rockett were on Chicago’s South Parnell Avenue. One of the men walked through a pathway while the other man stood behind a building as they were murdered, according to CBS News.

“Their families are going to walk around for the rest of their lives, thinking I killed their loved ones. How do you change that?” Wright said to CBS News.

David Owens, Wright’s attorney, told CBS News that Wright was 17 years old when he was interrogated for an “abusive” 14 hours by three Chicago detectives when he signed a confession.

“The only evidence that ever existed against Mr. Wright was the statements that they said that he gave as a juvenile,” Owens said to CBS News. “There was no eyewitness. There is no forensic evidence. There’s no bullet evidence. There’s no nothing like that. It’s just, ‘Oh yeah, this kid after 15 hours of interrogation said this,’ and that’s all it was. So once we showed that the cops lacked reliability, that was part of it.”