Exonerated, graduated, and ready for law school
James Soto and David Ayala were released from Stateville Correctional Center after a 42-year-long fight to prove their innocence, making Soto the longest-serving wrongfully convicted prisoner in Illinois history. Soto was convicted in 1981 for a double murder despite the absence of eyewitnesses and physical evidence linking him to the crime. While in prison, Soto earned a degree through Northwestern University’s Northwestern Prison Education Program and became a legal advocate, helping to win 14 new trials for other prisoners. He also recently took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), becoming the first incarcerated person in Illinois history to do so, and now plans to attend law school. Illinois has one of the highest rates of wrongful convictions in the nation, with a disproportionate number of the wrongfully convicted being Black or Brown people.
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