Marcel Brown made history earlier this month when he won a $50 million verdict against the city of Chicago.

In 2008, Brown was arrested for murder at the age of 18. He spent a decade in prison before being exonerated.

A federal jury awarded him that record-setting sum when he sued the city over his wrongful conviction.

Read More: Jury Awards $50M to Man Wrongfully Convicted of 2008 Murder, Setting New Chicago Record

Brown is represented by Loevy and Loevy, a law firm that specializes in police misconduct litigation and advertises itself by telling potential clients that “no law firm in Chicago has been more successful in litigating police brutality and police misconduct cases.”

The historic victory meant more to Brown than just money.

“This victory was a big one for me because I finally went to trial and I stood up against the same people that put me in this situation, and I won,” Brown said.

The jury’s verdict brought excitement and relief to Brown and his family, but it doesn’t erase the trauma he dealt with while in prison and the interrogation leading up to his coerced confession.

Detectives from the Chicago Police Department deprived Brown of food and sleep and questioned him for 34 hours before he was charged. They denied him access to a phone call and legal counsel while keeping him socially isolated.

“I was very, very wronged over three days, and that took a toll on my mental (health),” Brown said. “Fighting with the detectives, with the mind games they were playing, was probably one of the worst experiences of my life.”

Brown said the process of getting arrested, fighting to prove his innocence, going through the system and engaging in violence every day at the county jail left him feeling defeated.

He was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being found guilty for the murder of 19-year-old Paris Jackson in Amundsen Park. Brown was convicted in 2011 of first-degree murder after driving his cousin, 15-year-old Renard Branch Jr., to the West Side park.

“I just graduated high school,” Brown said. “I wasn’t really an adult, and I was placed in a concrete jungle among some of the most dangerous people in the world.”

When Brown was released at 28, an attorney from the Office of the State Appellate Defender referred his case to the Center for Wrongful Convictions. Brown’s conviction was overturned after Karen Daniel, director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, and attorney Greg Swygert, convinced a judge that “Brown falsely implicated himself in the shooting after the lengthy interrogation wore him down to the point that he said what the detectives wanted to hear,” according to the National Registry of Exonerations. 

Unfortunately these interrogation tactics are not a new practice of CPD, and have led to several wrongful convictions.

“Wrongful convictions are a systemic problem, particularly in Chicago, and one of the most common causes of a wrongful conviction is a false confession,” said Jon Loevy, attorney and founding partner of Loevy and Loevy. “Marcel arguably said incriminating things, but he was coerced, and that’s what we had to show to win this case, that the defendants intentionally violated his rights.”

Along with a coerced confession, the evidence also revealed a manipulated witness that assisted with Brown’s conviction.

“This case also involved witness manipulation, and that is a recurring problem for wrongful conviction,” Loevy said. “In this case, they kept a witness for 14 hours in the police station and didn’t let her go until she started telling the story they wanted to hear.”

Loevy stressed this case won because of the recorded tape of the interrogation.

This is one of the first wrongful convictions to have come out of a new era after Illinois passed a statute requiring the recording of custodial interrogations in most serious felony investigations. From that videotape, jurors were able to see the psychological coercion Brown endured.

Loevy is hopeful that this new development could potentially reduce wrongful convictions in the city.

Daniel and Swygert also used the tape to overturn Brown’s conviction. However, after being released, Brown’s reassimilation into society was a difficult one.

“When I got out, I didn’t know much about being a man,” Brown said. “I didn’t know where to find work. I didn’t know how to talk to people. I didn’t know how to engage in society anymore. Everything was a struggle.”

However Brown remains hopeful. He said this victory will allow him to take care of his family and enjoy life and the experiences he missed out on while incarcerated.

“I know I won’t get that time back, but I want to explore the world, and see what else is out there to offer me,” Brown said.

Heather Cherone contributed to this report.

Note: Loevy and Loevy has done legal work for WTTW News.