“The Hazel Boyz” is available now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble stores.
January 16, 2025
After being wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, four men returned to Northwestern’s campus to present their new book “The Hazel Boyz: The Trials of Four Innocent Men” Wednesday afternoon.
Deon Patrick, Lewis Gardner, Daniel Taylor and Paul Phillips partnered with NU’s Center on Wrongful Convictions to host an exclusive book signing event for “The Hazel Boyz.” The event took place in Thorne Auditorium at NU’s Pritzker School of Law.
Since its publication on Nov. 4, 2024, “The Hazel Boyz” became Amazon’s No. 1 book in its first week for the “new releases” category. The book tells the harrowing story of how the four men were wrongfully accused of murder as young adults and highlights their fight for justice.
The evening began with attorney Stuart Chanen — veteran Chicago lawyer and expert in civil rights law — moderating a panel discussion with the four authors. Stuart represented Patrick in his fight for freedom alongside attorney Nicole Nehama Auerbach.
“The more that people can hear about these stories … the more (we’ll see) improvement in terms of training not to continue this type of insanity of putting innocent people away,” Chanen said.
Patrick and Taylor were wrongfully convicted of a 1992 double murder despite being in police custody at the time. The prosecution sought the death penalty, but instead, the two spent 20 years in prison before their conviction was overturned in 2013. Taylor later sued the city, claiming officers coerced his confession and hid exonerating evidence.
Gardner and Phillips also spent a combined 30 years in prison before settling their lawsuit against the city in 2018, saying they were coerced into confessing to the crime.
“I thank (Patrick, Taylor and Gardner) for saying ‘Go ahead and persevere through all this,’” Phillips said. “There’s a lot of memories that you just want to leave alone, to get away from.”
Around 22,000 people in the U.S. are currently behind bars for crimes they did not commit — though many experts think the number is closer to a range of 55,000 to 110,000 people, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Chanen added that approximately 38% of all exonerations involve false confessions, while 21% involve coercion of witnesses.
During the panel, Patrick said that one of the great things that came as a result of the book is that the four of them have reconnected after all these years.
In terms of the next chapter in his life, Patrick said that he wishes to surround himself with positivity.
“Success means being happy, being free (and) being able to do the things that I want to do in my life,” Patrick said. “Some of those things, I may not even know what they are yet, but I just want to have the freedom to do them.”
As for Phillips, his plan is to start publishing his poetry, which includes work he wrote both while he was imprisoned and after he was released. However, there are currently no plans to publish a new book in the foreseeable future, he said.
NU’s Center for Wrongful Convictions continues to receive thousands of letters from prisoners all over the United States and helps represent children and teenagers who have been convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.
“These people (at Northwestern) have really embraced us and they’ve treated us well for the last 20-plus years,” Patrick said. “I think it’s all right for us to do the same and return to them.”
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