Some people waste the best years of their lives through drugs, crime, or laziness.
Others have those years wasted for them, through wrongful convictions for crimes they did not commit.
Thaddeus Jiminez ("TJ"), a young man from Chicago, is among the latter.
In 1993, when he was only 13 years old, TJ was arrested for a murder he did not commit. He was tried as an adult and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Imagine what it must have been like to be an innocent adolescent in an adult prison surrounded by real criminals.
Fortunately, justice has ultimately prevailed, albeit 26 years too late.
TJ was exonerated on May 1st, 2009, through years of pro bono work by lawyers at Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions. TJ is the youngest person at the time of his arrest ever to be exonerated in Illinois and likely in all of the United States.
Kudos to his lawyers for their hard work and perseverance.
>> Watch a short video about the exoneration. It features interviews with TJ's lawyers and footage of TJ leaving prison and seeing his mother for the first time as a free man.
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