WNBA star Maya Moore helped to successfully overturn the conviction of a man who served 22 years of a 50-year sentence for a crime he did not commit.
Jonathan Irons received the 50-year sentence for burglary and assaulting a homeowner with a gun.
Moore sat out an entire season to help overturn the conviction in March. Irons walked free on Wednesday, and Moore was there to welcome him.
“It was an unplanned moment where I just felt relief and it was kind of a worshipful moment,” she said on Good Morning America.
“Just dropping to my knees and being so thankful that we made it.”
Moore met Irons in 1998 in a prison ministry.
“When I stepped away [from the court] two springs ago, I really wanted to shift my priorities to be able to be more available and present to show up for things that I felt were mattering more than being a professional athlete,” she added.
Moore won her first WNBA title in her debut season and went onto further land titles in 2013, 2015 and 2017.
Back in January, Moore announced that she would be taking the upcoming season off to focus on criminal justice reform.
“When we take time to stand up for people, and to shine a light in a dark place, not everybody is going to like it,” she said at the time. “When it costs your comfort or maybe something that you just want to kind of check out and enjoy, I get that.”
She added, “Entertainment is a place where you want to relax and not have to think about the cares of the world, but we are in the world and the world is broken. So hats off to people that sacrifice, that pay a cost of a platform, of a job, of money to stand up for something greater than yourselves and at the end of the day, if we remember we’re human beings first, I think it’ll make it a little less controversial.”
