Nathson Fields said he hasn’t “received a dime” of the $22 million a federal jury awarded him in 2016 after he was wrongly convicted of a 1984 Chicago double murder.
“I still haven’t received my award” from the city of Chicago, Fields says on Sunday’s episode of the HLN series “Death Row Stories,” which is scheduled to air at 7 p.m.
The former El Rukn gang member spent 18 years behind bars, including 11 on death row. Fields and Earl Hawkins were convicted and sentenced to death for the South Side slayings of Talman Hickman and Jerome “Fuddy” Smith, a leader of the rival Black Gangster Disciples’ Goon Squad.
Fields was granted a retrial after Cook County judge Thomas Maloney, who presided over his bench trial, was convicted of accepting $10,000 to fix the case. The judge returned the cash during the trial when he suspected the FBI was onto the bribe.
Hawkins testified against Fields in the 2009 retrial, but Judge Vincent Gaughan said Hawkins was not believable. He acquitted Fields of both murders. Fields successfully sued the city, alleging that two Chicago police detectives falsified incriminating evidence and concealed favorable evidence. The case is now in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal court records show.
Fields, 65, said he now works with Witness to Innocence, a group of death row survivors who are devoted to abolishing the death penalty. He said he was also able to connect with his daughter, who was born after he was arrested.
Fields’ sister, Ruth; his attorneys, Candace Gorman and John Stainthorp; former federal prosecutor Scott Mendeloff; and Torrence White, who said he heard gunshots in the 1984 double slaying, were also interviewed for “Death Row Stories.”
Season 4 of the series — which is executive produced by Robert Redford, “Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief” director Alex Gibney and others — premiered last month.
tswartz@tribpub.com
