The payout for the "Marquette Park 4," as they became known after the infamous murder case, is the largest since at least 2008 for reversed convictions in Chicago, a city that’s racked up over $300 million in lawsuit settlements for wrongfully convicted people, according to a USA TODAY review of documents from Chicago's Department of Law.
Illinois has been dubbed by the Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal organization that's helped to successfully overturn over 300 convictions nationwide through DNA-based exonerations, as "the wrongful conviction capital of the country." Illinois’ 540 exonerations of wrongfully convicted people tops the ranking of states, followed by Texas, with 474 exonerations, according to the Innocence Project.