In the case of People of the State of Illinois v. F.C. (trial date, May 19, 2010), at the Criminal Courthouse (26th & California),  the defendant, charged with multiple counts of Attempt First Degree Murder and Aggravated Discharge of a Firearm, was found not guilty of all charges.   The case involved a shooting at a Marathon gas station on 89th and Ashland.   Several witnesses identified the defendant as the shooter in a photo array and a line-up following the shooting but when subjected to questioning at trial, two of the witnesses could not identify the defendant as the shooter.  The one witness who stayed firm in his identification of the defendant was impeached in multiple respects and could not assign a motive to the defendant.  That witness also stated that he was ”not sure” if the defendant was in the initial photo array that he viewed.  On cross-examination, that witness conceded that when he viewed the physical line-up, he was identifying the same person whom he saw in the photo array.  Another witness who had initially gave a statement to police implicating the defendant recanted that statement at trial.

There was a gas staion video depicting the alleged shooting but the defendant could not be identified as the person on the video.  The defense had the video cropped into frame-by-frame photographs and maginfied but the individuals on the video could still not be identified.

In honor of the victory, the defendant, an up-and-coming southside rapper, wrote a song about the trial, which includes  a “shout out to my lawyers, the Sheppards…Barry and Adam.”  The song is titled, “Free Man,” . . . Here’s the link:

FREE MAN