Legally blind is not the same thing as being totally blind. My brother is "legally blind" but he can see well enough to read and drive a car. Still you have to wonder why the court didn't take this into consideration at the time - what was motivating the judge to overlook this fact and allow this man to be incarcerated on the basis of flawed eyewitness testimony? Someone had this court's short hairs in their grips.
The article says that the witness said that he was much closer than the cameras on site showed he actually was.
Also in the article, there's the issue that CPD told others to identify Harris or else. One of them already recanted their statements.
So what does it means "Legally blind" if he can drive and read? What's the threshold to be considered legally blind?
Found this definition;
In the United States, legal blindness means your central visual acuity—the part of your vision that allows you to see straight ahead—is 20/200 or less in your better eye when wearing corrective lenses. With 20/200 vision, you can see at 20 feet what a person with 20/20 vision sees at 200 feet. Or, your 20-degree field allows for seeing only right in front of you.
You can be legally blind with tunnel vision, i.e. you can see directly ahead, but nothing out of the corner of your eye.
That sound dangerous when doing something other than reading. Even walking could be a problem without having peripheral view.
He has lost most of his eyesight in one eye due to a childhood illness. He does have a driver's license, but it says "legally blind" on it. Legally blind just means you can still see, just not that clearly. It can include all kinds of other eye conditions that don't make you actually blind.
Ok, I understand. Thank you for your explanation. I live in Europe and I'm not sure we have something like that here. I think that if you can't see very well you can either drive with glasses or be denied to drive.
Majority of eyewitness testimony is inaccurate. That alone should never have been enough to convict, much less from someone with legitimately terrible eyesight.
I agree, I mean given that the eye witness wasn't even that close to see what happened, that should have raised flags about the veracity of what said they saw. And having a vision problem complicates it even further. Being legally blind doesn't mean you necessarily can't see what's happening, but it should put your testimony under further scrutiny.
I haven't fact checked this, but I have a friend who claims he is legally blind without his glasses, but can see fine with his glasses.
Blind eyewitness? I see.
You might, but they don't. I think that was the problem.
That’s an extremely shortsighted view.
team had urged Cook County State’s Attorney
Is it just me, or is Cook County hitting the news a lot?
Maybe a case of, “if they messed this up let’s take a look to see what else they missed”.
Very insightful was the moment the lawyer walked to the back of the room and asked the witness how many fingers he was holding up.
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