After jurors found her client not guilty of murder the night before, defense counsel Brittany Kimble spent the day Tuesday trying to get him released from jail.
She received a text message at 10 p.m. with the news he was out - from David Fields himself.
At 9 p.m. on Monday, Circuit Judge Robert Haida announced the acquittal of Fields who was accused of murdering Carl Silas on Dec. 30, 2016.
Haida, who presided over the five-day trial, told Fields's family in court that they could pick him up later that night at the jail, but when they arrived at close to 10 p.m. a jail deputy told them he wouldn’t release Fields, citing a parole or probation violation.
Fields had spent nearly two years confined at the St. Clair County Jail.
"She (Kimble) got a text message around 10 last night," co-defense counsel Ryan Neal said on Wednesday morning.
Neal also had worked on Tuesday trying to get Fields released from jail. He had been told by state officials that Fields might remain in custody for a month or two, because his indictment caused corrections officials to allege a violation of supervised release from a previous case. Although Fields defeated the indictment, the allegation had remained active.
Neal reached out to State Sen. Clayborne, writing in an email that he had been told by the Illinois Department of Corrections that Fields was required to go before a parole review board before he could be released. But, Neal argued that Fields's parole expired in October 2017 while he was in custody.
He said that he and Kimble did "everything we could" to get Fields released.
"Brittany Kimble and I believe in overwhelming force," he said. "We just hit it from every angle we could to get him out as soon as possible."