Danny Wilber, 44, an Afro-Indigenous man enrolled at the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, fought for post-conviction relief after spending nearly 18 years in Wisconsin prison for first-degree intentional homicide, a crime he was able to prove he didn’t commit. A federal judge granted his petition for habeas corpus, and he was released from prison on Dec. 22, 2021, pending the state’s appeal, with his case being dismissed on May 27, 2022. His claim for wrongful conviction was denied by the Wisconsin Claims Board in July 2024, but his federal civil rights claim was settled by the Milwaukee Common Council on May 13, 2025 for $7 million, the second largest in Milwaukee’s history. Photo of Danny Wilber at the Wisconsin State Capitol on December 4, 2022 courtesy of Lacey Kinnart.

By Darren Thompson

MILWAUKEE—On May 13, the Milwaukee Common Council approved a $6.96 million settlement for the wrongful conviction of an Afro-Indigenous man who spent 18 years in prison.

Danny Wilber, an Oneida Nation of Wisconsin citizen, was convicted for first-degree intentional murder in Milwaukee County for an incident that occurred in Jan. 2004. The wrongful conviction settlement is the second largest in Milwaukee’s history, and is the result of a federal lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee and nine former Milwaukee police officers alleged to have violated Wilber’s constitutional rights.

“The Milwaukee Police Department knew Danny Wilber was innocent—and they framed him anyway," said Lacey Kinnart, Wilber’s partner for more than a decade, in an interview with the LRI Native News Desk. “The Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office had physical evidence proving his innocence and still spent years fighting to keep him in a cage. This wasn’t a failure of justice—it was a full-scale, intentional cover-up.”

Wilber was convicted in Feb. 2005 for the first-degree intentional murder of 24-year-old David Diaz at a house party on Mineral Street, in Milwaukee’s South Side. He was sentenced to life in prison, with a chance for parole after 40 years. Wilber appealed his conviction with the help of his appellate attorney, Brian Kintsler. He asked for a new trial, and raised three separate issues, including that physical evidence of destroyed clothing and shoes which could not have fit Wilber was admitted to the court, Wilber was visibly shackled during the closing arguments in front a jury, and the state was never able to prove its theory that Wilber fired the fatal shots that left Diaz dead at the scene. Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Mary Kuhnmuench denied the direct appeal, and the Wisconsin Court of Appeals upheld Wilber's conviction in 2008.

After Wilber's appeal was denied, he filed a pro se petition in 2010 for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court challenging the state’s jurisdiction to keep him incarcerated. According to Wilber’s attorneys, he sent his initial petition while in solitary confinement and was unsure if he had funds on his commissary account to afford a postage stamp. His message, however, got through, and his motion to the court to stay his petition was successful. The Eastern District of Wisconsin granted his request, pending the exhaustion of all of his state remedies.

“He was just a few days shy of his one-year deadline,” said Kinnart, who is a member of the Board of Directors for the Great North Innocence Project. “If he would have missed that deadline, he would still be in prison.”

Danny Wilber, left, was visibly shackled to a wheelchair in front a jury during closing arguments of his trial on February 23, 2005. Courtesy photo.

Wilber's habeas corpus petition asked the federal courts for relief, stating that his constitutional rights were violated in numerous ways. The petition claimed Wilber had ineffective assistance of counsel and that the state presented insufficient evidence. The petition also claimed that Judge Kuhnmuench’s orders to have Wilber visibly shackled during closing arguments in front of a jury ultimately prejudiced him from a fair trial.

While his habeas corpus petition was stayed in court, U.S. District Judge William Griesbach ordered that Wilber stay in regular contact with the court while he exhausted his remedies for post-conviction relief in the State of Wisconsin. "Keeping a case on stay/hold for that long is rare, and Judge Griesbach wanted to make sure that Danny wasn’t wasting time and to show that he was actually working on his case in the state courts,” Kinnart said. “I think the judge knew Danny was innocent based on the initial expert report he included in his very first petition and motion to stay. A forensic pathologist said it was impossible for Danny to have fired the shot and that the state’s theory was physically impossible.”

Reporting to the court was serious, though. Once, Wilber barely missed a deadline of filing a status report, usually a one-or two-page statement, and Griesbach dismissed his petition. However, when Wilber’s report arrived just after the dismissal, he motioned the court to reconsider his prior ruling and granted Wilber’s motion to reconsider, putting the case back on track.

When Griesbach granted Wilber’s petition, therefore also overturning his conviction, his decision was based partly on the issue of Wilber being visibly shackled in front of a jury and partly on the evidence. “Given the inconsistent testimony of the eyewitnesses and the physical evidence suggesting Wilber could not have fired the fatal shot, the error may well have contributed to Wilber's conviction," Judge Griesbach wrote on August 4, 2020.

The State of Wisconsin appealed the ruling, but the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld Griesbach's decision in October 2021. “For over 50 years, the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized that the fairness of a trial is brought into question when a defendant is made to appear before a jury bearing the badges of restraint,” wrote Appeals Judge Ilana Rovner, in her opinion on the ruling. “Whatever risks Wilber may have posed to the security and dignity of the trial proceeding, neither the trial judge nor the [Wisconsin] appellate court ever cited a reason why the additional restraints ordered for the final phase of the trial had to be restraints that were visible to the jury, nor is such a reason otherwise apparent from the record."

Wilber spent nearly 18 years in state prison, and was released from the Milwaukee County Jail on Dec. 22, 2021 on $10,000 cash bond, pending a possible retrial in Milwaukee County. His conviction was vacated by Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Glenn Yamahiro two days before he was released, on Dec. 20. It took a very long couple of days, Kinnart said, for Wilber to be released because of the rare situation of a state prisoner’s release from a county jail without notice.

On May 27, 2022, the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office dismissed the case.

After Wilber’s release, he filed an Innocent Convict Claim for his wrongful imprisonment, only to be denied by the State of Wisconsin Claims Board. The Wisconsin Claims Board wrote in its decision regarding Wilber’s claim on July 23, 2024 that the court "didn't find him innocent and his conviction wasn’t overturned based on innocence.”

In his claim, Wilber asked the State of Wisconsin for $25,000, the statutory maximum amount in the state for wrongful imprisonment, capped at a maximum of $5,000 a year. He also asked for $192,149.16 in attorney’s fees and additional compensation of $875,000 for a total claim of $1,092,149.16. Wisconsin has one of the lowest caps in the nation for wrongfully convicted people.

In its decision on July 23, 2024, the Wisconsin Claims Board said, “Wisconsin statute does not provide compensation to individuals who simply establish that their convictions have been overturned, it provides compensation to individuals who establish their innocence by clear and convincing evidence.”. The claims board cited a statement from the Milwaukee Country District Attorney’s Office, saying that the trial court made an error in placing Wilber in shackles in front of a jury and that the court was not able to demonstrate that Wilber was innocent of the charges.

“In this instance, although the federal court overturned Wilber's conviction because he had been visibly shackled in front of the jury, the court expressly did not overturn the appellate court's finding that the evidence was sufficient to support Wilber's conviction,” the Wisconsin Claims Board wrote. Because his conviction was vacated as a result of being shackled, and not on evidence that could prove his innocence, the claims board denied his claim against the state for compensation.

However, Kinnart said that the Wisconsin Claims Board went beyond their scope of work in dismissing Wilber’s claim. “All this is needed for an award of his claim was to prove clearly and convincingly that he was innocent,” she said. “We did that by submitting multiple reports from experts that said that it was impossible for Danny to have shot Diaz.”

In the Wisconsin Claims Board’s denial of Wilber’s claim they said, “the fact that Wilber found two experts to review certain documentation and interpret the evidence in his favor does not in and of itself constitute clear and convincing evidence of his innocence.”

One of the experts who submitted evidence that disproved the state’s theory that Wilber fired the fatal shot was Dr. Lindsey Thomas, an expert that both Minnesota and Wisconsin rely upon as an expert witness. Dr. Thomas testified in the trial against Derek Chauvin, the convicted Minneapolis police officer that was recorded killing George Floyd in May 2020.

With the help of After Innocence, a non-profit organization based in Oakland, California, Wilber and Kinnart hired the People’s Law Office (PLO), a nonprofit organization with decades of advocacy based in Chicago with a mission for advocating for civil rights, to file a civil rights complaint on his behalf. The complaint filed against the City of Milwaukee and nine former Milwaukee police officers contended that they violated Wilber’s constitutional rights by manufacturing evidence that falsely implicated Wilber, suppressed evidence that would have exonerated him, and by ignored evidence that pointed to alternative suspects in the murder of David Diaz.

“These officers framed Mr. Wilber, the complaint further alleges, despite the fact that the medical and physical evidence established that it was impossible for him to have committed the crime,” said the People’s Law Office in a statement when they filed the civil rights complaint on July 17, 2023.

On May 8 of this year–which was Wilber’s 46th birthday–the City of Milwaukee’s Judiciary and Legislation Committee recommended approving the settlement of $6,960,000 plus attorney’s fees, but before they did, some elected leaders expressed frustration that the city would be paying the bill.

“I have to get this on record because this is extremely frustrating, and I just gotta say this: this is bullshit that we are sitting here essentially approving a 7.2 million dollar settlement, including attorney fees, lawsuit on something that was not overturned due to the city's fault,” said Milwaukee Common CouncilVice-Chair Mark Chamber, Jr. in a meeting on May 8. “The judge made a decision due to some behaviors he was displaying during trial to make, you know, being violated, or whatever the case may be, being overturned was the real reason why this case was overturned, for opening us up for liability.”

Chamber continued his statement on the record and blamed the situation on “an incompetent judge”—Judge Kuhnmuench, who is now retired—.

PLO attorneys Ben Elson and Flint Taylor, who represented Wilber, said in a statement on May 13, 2025: “The City of Milwaukee knows very well that Danny Wilber is innocent and that he was framed by Milwaukee police detectives, otherwise it wouldn’t be paying him $7 million. Instead of passing the blame onto others, the City should publicly acknowledge its role in Danny Wilber’s wrongful conviction and make a sincere apology.”

The claim also alleged that the City of Milwaukee and its police department have a “long-standing and flagrantly unconstitutional" policies, practices and customs that caused and supported the violation of Danny Wilber's constitutional rights. They asked the Mayor, the Milwaukee Common Council, and the Milwaukee Police Department to address systemic police misconduct that “caused Mr. Wilber needless pain and suffering.”

The complaint alleges that he “sustained injuries and damages, including loss of his freedom for almost eighteen years, loss of his youth, personal injuries, pain and suffering, severe mental anguish, emotional distress, inadequate medical care, humiliation, indignities, embarrassment, degradation, permanent loss of natural psychological development, and restrictions on all forms of personal freedom including but not limited to diet, sleep, personal contact, educational opportunity, vocational opportunity, athletic opportunity, personal fulfillment, sexual activity, family relations, reading, television, movies, travel, enjoyment, and freedom of speech and expression.”

“We didn’t stumble across new evidence — the truth was always there," said Kinnart. “They had it. They ignored it. And they fought us at every step to protect themselves. What we did uncover these past years is the misconduct and corruption they enacted in the process. The system didn’t break — it functioned exactly as designed: to crush the innocent, protect the powerful, and never admit wrongdoing. We exposed it, we tore it down, and we made them pay. No innocent person — especially one who can prove their innocence — should ever have to go through what we went through. It was Hell. Years and years of Hell on top of paying over $200,000 in legal expenses. The fact that we had to wage a war just to free an innocent man is a brutal indictment of a system built to destroy lives, not deliver justice.”

Danny Wilber’s own statement, released on May 13, 2025, expanded on those thoughts to further highlight systemic issues. “This settlement clearly establishes what I have truthfully maintained at all times—that I was completely innocent and that it was physically impossible that I committed this murder,” he said. “The evidence that came out in this case showed that this was not a series of mistakes by a squad of incompetent detectives. No, it was a conscious plan to construct a false case against me with manufactured witness statements in order to put me behind bars. It was a plan that they have used again and again against Black, Indigenous and other poor people of color. In this case, like in many others, the prosecutors and the Court system were, from beginning to end, vindictively complicit in my wrongful conviction and incarceration.”

Danny Wilber was released from the Milwaukee County Jail on December 22, 2021 after spending nearly 18 years in the Wisconsin prison system. Photo courtesy of Lacey Kinnart.

Although the state and its agencies claim that Wilber has not been exonerated for the murder of Diaz, he is on the National Registry of Exonerations. Wilber is one of very few American Indians exonerated in Wisconsin’s history. Nationally, there is no concise data on the total number of people who identify as American Indian, and who are enrolled in federally recognized tribes, to have been exonerated.

Wilber’s attorneys Elson and Taylor said of the settlement, "The City of Milwaukee knows very well that Danny Wilber is innocent and that he was framed by Milwaukee police detectives, otherwise it wouldn’t be paying him $7 million.”

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This story has been updated to include that After Innocence is a non-profit organization based in Oakland, California.

Darren Thompson is the Managing Editor for the Last Real Indians Native News Desk and Director of Media Relations for the Sacred Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He covers tribal sovereignty, environment and social justice, and Indigenous music, arts, and film. He can reached at darren@sacreddefense.org.

Afro-Indigenous Man to Receive Nearly $7 Million for Wrongful Conviction in City of Milwaukee