On the 19th local time, the Cook County Jail in Illinois released a 30-year-old man, Dalien Harris, who had spent 12 years in prison. A week before he graduated from high school, he was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to 76 years in prison.

Even more outrageous is that in 2018, his lawyer Mueller was surprised to find that the main witness called by the prosecution in court that year was a blind man. After he reported his findings to county prosecutors, they have refused to reopen the case without giving a clear reason. It was not until Mueller went beyond the level of appeal, accusing the Cook County prosecutor of violating the United States Constitution that the county prosecutors took notice and finally decided to acquit Harris.

The case involved an incident at a Chicago gas station in June 2011, in which Harris was accused of fatally shooting Rondell Moore and attempting to murder Quincy Wallard, a mechanical engineer at the station. In the weeks after the shooting, police rounded up a group of suspects and lined them up for identification.

An "eyewitness" testified that he saw Harris shoot at the gas station, which is the core "evidence" of the Cook County prosecution of Harris. But it was only years later that lawyer Mueller, acting on a chance tip, discovered that the witness was actually blind.

So far this year, Cook County has corrected a large number of wrongful convictions from previous years, acquitting 19 people, many of whom had been imprisoned for more than 25 years. Just this month, Cousins James Soto and David Ayala were cleared of being wrongfully convicted of the murders of two Chicago teenagers in 1981, 42 years after they were imprisoned.

The wrongful convictions, many years old, largely stemmed from the Cook County Office of Conviction Integrity, which was widely criticized and renamed the Office of Conviction Review this month. Illinois Attorney Fox said the department's "rebranding represents a fundamental shift in our attitude to correct past mistakes, ensure fairness in the justice system, and incorporate community voices into our decision-making methods." The Cook County Prosecutor's Office said, "We will continue to stand up for the health and safety of the community."

On the evening of the 19th, Harris walked out of the prison gate and said excitedly, "After 12 years, I finally managed to survive, although I lost many of the best times of my life in prison, but from now on, my life will enter a better stage." Harris' mother, Shakona, said she was finally relieved and that her son's return still felt "surreal like a dream".