Valdez is familiar with the criminal justice system as his sister was incarcerated for 10 years.
Studies estimate the rate of wrongful conviction in the United States is anywhere between 2% to 10%, and the Innocence Project details the impact. So I think telling a story like Maya’s, it’s just a testament to how far we have to go, still, in our country.” There are so many people who don’t have the resources and the means to fight for simple justice in this country. “But also there are thousands of other Jonathans still in there. He’s already lost 23 years of his life, his family lost 23 years with him, his community lost 23 years with him. “Yes, Jonathan was in prison for 23½ years and was let go because of a Brady violation. “That’s something that I hope is not lost on people when they watch this because it’s bittersweet,” Valdez told Yahoo Sports. He wrote the case against the teenager was “ very weak and circumstantial at best.”
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And their story is one of the few successes.Ī Missouri judge, Daniel Green, vacated the conviction in March 2020 for a series of issues that included a fingerprint report that hadn’t been turned over to Irons’ defense team in what’s called a Brady violation. The story is one of chance meetings and a willingness to believe and fight over 23 years, which to put into perspective is nearly all of the WNBA’s existence. Jonathan Irons, Maya Moore's story 'bittersweet,' director says
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None of that was known until Moore stepped away, even while Moore sent him their own inside messages during TV interviews at games. The Williamses had taken interest in his case after first being introduced through Moore’s great-uncle, Hugh Flowers, who met Irons as a choir director. The film goes through the timeline of Moore and Irons’ relationship, which dates to 2007 when a then-18-year-old Moore visited him in prison while seeing her godparents, Cherilyn and Reggie Williams, back home in Missouri. “We can talk about Maya being one of the best basketball players to ever play the game, her championships, her personal records, all of the things that she’s done,” Valdez told Yahoo Sports, “but at the core of this film it started with one human believing in another human.”
That success is put into perspective with scenes of former President Barack Obama joking how Moore has her own wing at the White House given how often she visited. the NFL premiered in February.Moore’s greatness, from high school to two undefeated title seasons at UConn to four titles with the Lynx, sets up the larger story.
The installment is the first from ESPN’s ’30 for 30′ strand since Al Davis vs. The film will stream on ESPN+ and the ESPN App immediately after its linear premiere. Green of Rock’n Robin Productions, as well as Linsday Kagawa Colas. It’s executive produced by Robin Roberts, Reni Calister and John R. “I hope the film sheds light on how society demonizes both those behind bars and those connected at home and inspires people to find inner strength and fight against a system that does not want us to win.”īreakaway premieres July 13 at 9 p.m. “I wanted to make this film not only to honor and celebrate the incredible criminal justice reform advocacy that Maya has been working toward with Jonathan Irons, but also to tell a very human story that is often told inhumanely,” Valdez said in a press release. The Sentence also received a Primetime Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary. The film is directed by Rudy Valdez, who previously directed The Sentence, a 2018 film distributed by HBO that won the US Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, and explored similar themes about the criminal justice system. But in 2019, she took a sabbatical from basketball at age 29 to work full-time on releasing a man named Jonathan Irons from prison, who was wrongly convicted of burglary and assault and sentenced to 50 years. The basketball star was a top player in her sport winning four WNBA championships, two Olympic gold medals, a WNBA scoring title and a WNBA MVP. ESPN is set to debut the next installment in its Peabody Award-winning ’30 for 30′ series, Breakaway, next month.īreakaway will cover the story of WNBA superstar and activist Maya Moore.
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