A federal jury Thursday found the city of Chicago as well as current and former police officers liable for more than $22 million in damages in the wrongful conviction of a former gang member.

Nathson Fields spent almost 18 years behind bars. He was falsely arrested, indicted and convicted for the 1984 murders of two people on the city's South Side. A judge found Fields not guilty in his re-trial after discrediting several witnesses.

Fields' suit named 38 defendants, including the city, former Mayor Richard Daley, Chicago Police officers, former and current Cook County prosecutors and 100 John Does. He was awarded $22 million in compensatory damages and $40,000 in punitive damages

“(Fields) actually had multiple dates with the executioner, he was supposed to have gotten the death penalty,” attorney Jon Loevy said during a press conference Thursday. “When someone like Mr. Fields could have been executed twice for a crime he didn’t commit, it took the system a long time to figure out a mistake was made, and that’s a real good argument why we shouldn’t have the death penalty.”

Fields told reporters Thursday he filed the lawsuit while on death row "fighting for my life" in 1988 and hopes it opens the door to other wrongful conviction cases.

“I stand before you as the living proof that there’s other men in prison for things they didn’t do," he said.

The city said in a statement it is "disappointed by and will be appealing the jury's verdict."

The key issue in Fields’ trial was the Chicago Police Department’s and city's use of so-called “street files” to keep potentially beneficial evidence from criminal defendants.

“The city of Chicago was independently liable here because they maintained a street file practice all through the '80s and continuing through the '90s and even into the 2000s,” Loevy said. “They have a practice at the city where they withhold exculpatory evidence in a parallel set of files and we presented that evidence to the jury."

The jury determined both the individual defendant police officers and the city of Chicago violated Fields’ constitutional right to due process.

“We asked the jury for $1 million a year for each of the years for wrongful incarceration, the jury actually came back with more than we asked for,” Loevy said.

It is one of the highest awards of its type in U.S. history, according to law firm Loevy & Loevy’s news release.

Loevy said Fields had been filing complaints for years against the city from death row saying it had not provided him with all of the evidence in his case. He was finally given files he had previously not had access to in 2011.

“A lot of the evidence at trial concerned this 400 to 1,000 files that are in the basement of the city of Chicago that contain material that are relevant to people’s criminal cases,” Loevy said. “And what the jury found was that the city has a policy and practice of withholding evidence—and there’s maybe other people in prison whose files are affected by this practice.”

Loevy said he did not know if the "street files" practice was still being used by the city today, but insisted Fields' case proves it continued into at least the 2000s.

Fields expressed gratitute to the jury members and judge involved in the case and gave a brief statement on his time in prison.

“I’m a man that’s spent 12 years in a cage on death row, five-by-seven, I could touch all the walls," he said. "I saw men lose their minds due to the stress of death row,” adding that he watched friends marched to their executions.

“This day is very humbling, I wish my mom was here,” a choked up Fields told reporters. “And I’m just so happy, I’m so happy.”