Daniel Taylor confessed to the crime after he was beaten by Chicago police officers.
Besides a confession, the lawsuit alleges a cover-up by eight Chicago police detectives and patrol officers involved in Daniel Taylor's arrest and conviction. It took two decades for Taylor to prove his innocence even though police records showed Taylor was nowhere near the murder scene.
He will never get the 20 years back but, Daniel Taylor does want pay back specifically from the officers who coerced a confession from Taylor and made up evidence to secure a double murder conviction for a crime Taylor did not commit.
''For them to go to prison would be top notch to experience what I did, but of course that is not going to happen,'' Taylor said.
While the officers responsible are likely not to be criminally prosecuted, Daniel Taylor and his attorneys want to make sure those responsible for Taylor's wrongful conviction are held accountable which is why Taylor is filing a federal lawsuit Monday against the officers and the city of Chicago.
''It is time for the for the other shoe to drop the police officers responsible need to be brought justice themselves,'' said Locke Bowman, director of the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University's School of Law.
In 1992, at just 17 years old, Taylor was arrested for killing two people, despite jail records that proved Taylor was in police custody for a disorderly conduct charge when the murders took place, Taylor was convicted based on a confession that he signed after he endured several hours of beatings. At the time, he says it was the easy way out.
''If know then what I know now, I would have taken the beating then go through what I went through,'' Taylor said.
It took 20 years for the justice ystem to catch up. Last June, Taylor was released from prison after charges were dropped and he was declared innocent. Taylor says prison was so rough that he came close to giving up hope.
''At one point I tried taking my life cause I couldn't see walking up bars steel toilet for the rest of my life,'' Taylor said.
