On 9 March 2020, Irons' conviction was overturned.
They tried to prevent a review but were unsuccessful and, in October 2019, Irons was finally able to state his innocence in front of a judge. Some 21 years after Irons' conviction, state prosecutors were still not willing to admit defeat. So in early 2019, when she was supposed to be preparing for the new WNBA season, Moore got to work with Irons and his lawyers to request a retrial. "He just had to keep believing that if we could get the truth in front of the right people, who want to do the right thing, they'll do it." "There's something about truth that makes you believe it's going to happen," Moore says. Why? Because she always believed Irons was telling the truth. A four-time WNBA champion with Minnesota Lynx, Moore (pictured here in 2011) starred in the college game with the University of ConnecticutĮventually, she decided to press pause on her basketball career. She sent him books by her favourite writers and spoke to him on the phone before big games. Over the years that followed, she continued to return to Jefferson City - her hometown - to visit Irons. In 2007, nine years into that sentence, an 18-year-old Moore travelled to Missouri to visit family and met Irons through the prison ministry they were involved with. In December 1998, aged 18, Irons was convicted of assault and burglary by an all-white jury and sent to prison for 50 years. "We need to send a message to some of these younger people that if you are going to act like somebody old, you are going to be treated like somebody old." He is as dangerous as somebody five times that age. There were particularly harsh sentences for young offenders handed out.Ī prosecutor is quoted as saying about Irons: external-link "Don't be soft on him because he is young. The officer who questioned Irons was alone and did not record the interview.Īt the time of the trial, in October 1998, American politicians were running on tough-on-crime platforms. Prosecutors said Irons had admitted the offence, something he and his lawyers denied. No corroborating witnesses.Ī public defender would not allow Irons to take the stand to proclaim his innocence, saying he was too young and uneducated. But there were no fingerprints connecting the teenager to the crime. Later, at a preliminary hearing, Stotler identified Irons as the assailant. According to the New York Times, external-link a police officer asked him to make his best guess and he pointed at a picture of Irons and another one of a different African-American man. Stotler survived and was initially unable to identify the perpetrator in a line-up of six photos. When Stotler returned, the burglar shot him in the head. On 14 January 1997, someone entered the home of Stanley Stotler, situated in a white working-class suburb of St Louis, Missouri. Watch the moment Jonathan Irons emerged from prisonĪlthough he was just 16 when the crime took place, Irons was tried as an adult.
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