Chicago taxpayers have paid nearly $700 million since 2000 in lawsuits by people who claimed they were framed by police

Jacques Rivera speaks to reporters at the Dirksen Federal Building in 2018, after a jury awarded him $17.5 million from the city of Chicago. Rivera spent more than 20 years in prison after he was framed for a 1988 murder by former Chicago Police Department detective Reynaldo Guevara. (Max Herman/For The Sun-Times)

Jacques Rivera waited through more than 20 years in prison and countless court hearings before he was able to clear his name and go free. 

Prosecutors dropped charges against him in 2011, and he received a certificate of innocence — a ruling from a judge that he did not commit the 1988 murder that landed him an 80-year sentence.