Although his suit was dismissed in a summary judgement issued by federal judge Robert Gettleman he did receive $213,624 in compensation from the State of Illinois.
His name had come up when police talked with Ricky Warner, the severely wounded survivor of a February shooting at the Exodus club in Wrigleyville.
Boyd gave the police permission to search his loft, and Richard Zuley, a white homicide detective, left him shackled to a wall in the precinct station for several hours while he was gone.
He agreed to a bench trial in October 1990 and was convicted by the judge, based on what the prosecution presented as eyewitness identification by Warner.
[1] In 2001 the television station WGNTV in Chicago had learned about Boyd's case and began its own investigation, including interviews of seven of the nine eyewitnesses.
Her Conviction Integrity Unit conducted a routine review of his case history[1] beginning in 2011 after new evidence about the eyewitnesses was introduced by Boyd's new attorney Kathleen Zellner.
[6] In October 2013 Boyd "sued Chicago, six named police officers and several unknown individuals in the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Illinois.
"[2] After depositions were taken from all the parties and following multiple motions Federal Judge Robert Gettleman dismissed Boyd's suit in a summary judgement.
Judge Gettleman gives a thorough and comprehensive response to each of the counts in Boyd's claim and finds that the "Plaintiff's argument provides no reason to believe, and certainly no evidence, that the defendant officers collaborated in a broad and comples sceme to frame him for the February 24, 1990, shooting.
[7] Zuley was among several detectives, including Jon Burge, who were investigated in the late 1990s and into the 21st century because of alleged abuse of suspects.
[7][8] The 1990 Goldston Report by the Chicago Office of Professional Standards and an independent investigation concluded in 2006, determined that Burge and his men had committed torture in numerous instances and that there were some convictions based only on confessions coerced by them.