Northwestern Prison Education Program

Story by Anthony Ehlers; Photos by Monika Wnuk

Anthony Ehlers is a Communications Fellow for the Northwestern Prison Education Program and a recent graduate with a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Northwestern University. Before James Soto was released from Stateville Correctional Center, Anthony interviewed him to talk about his experience as the longest-serving wrongfully convicted person in Illinois history.

On December 14, 2023, NPEP graduate James Soto walked out of Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois, concluding a 42-year struggle to prove his innocence. A Cook County Judge exonerated Soto and his cousin, David Ayala, marking the end of their tenure as the longest-serving wrongfully convicted persons in Illinois history.

In 1981, Soto and Ayala were convicted of a double murder despite the absence of eyewitnesses or physical evidence linking them to the crime. Soto’s attorney’s neglect paved the way for a swift conviction, leaving Soto grappling with the injustice of a crime he did not commit.

“No one would listen,” Soto recalled. “I was telling everyone I could that I was innocent, but no one wanted to listen.”

Wrongful convictions are pervasive. Estimates for wrongful convictions range from 0.027% to 15%, underscoring flaws in the justice system’s procedures. Even if the more conservative estimates are accepted, that translates to thousands of innocent people who are still locked up.

In Illinois, the outlook is even more grim. Over the past decade, more than two-thirds of exonerations in Illinois involved murder convictions, almost twice the national average. And the number of Black people in the state who were wrongfully arrested and convicted sits at 77% — a rate that trumps the national average by more than 20%.

Soto leaves Stateville an innocent and humble man of integrity and principle, qualities that would be difficult to find in any man, let alone someone who has spent the last 42 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

Before his release, I spoke with him to reflect on his journey.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Anthony: Take me back to your trial more than four decades ago. How do you view that time as someone who is now a legal advocate?

James: I had never been on trial for anything before. I was so young that I had no idea what was going on. A lawyer has to have a college degree, and they have to go through years of training and studying to pass the bar exam to become a lawyer. But the court expects you to know just as much, if not more, than your lawyer. You have to hold them accountable. You’re responsible for what your lawyer does. The court doesn’t hold your lawyer responsible for errors or inadequacies — they hold you responsible. How is any kid off the street supposed to know more than their lawyer? The system is set up for you to fail.

Anthony: To me, the system runs like an assembly line at a factory. A conviction is put together and run at the trial level before it travels up the assembly line. Judges and prosecutors check the levers and switches at various stations before they put it in a box, put a lid on it, and place it on the shelf. But by this time it’s gone for good, and it’s dispatched to nothing more than case law.

James: People like to say that the system is broken, but the truth of the matter is the system runs just like it’s supposed to. Those at the top keep those at the bottom from moving up in ways that are all dressed up in stiff and sterile legal language.

This cannot become the norm. It cannot become an accepted part of the process for innocent men and women to languish in prison forever for a crime they did not commit, only to be set free decades later after their lives have passed them by — their children have grown up without a mother or a father or their loved ones have died. It’s unacceptable that Illinois is the worst in the nation when it comes to police misconduct and wrongful convictions.

Photo by Nora Collins (The Daily Northwestern)

Anthony: Why do you think this problem continues to plague the people of Illinois?

James: Honestly, it comes down to a lack of political will. That’s the major impediment we hear a lot about in criminal justice reform, but nothing ever gets done. These politicians play three-card monte with their words. They offer lip service to the idea of change because they know it’s what people want, but then they make political calculations — as they do all too often — but those calculations don’t add up to change. They won’t change the procedures to help because they have a fear of guilty defendants convicted of violent offenses exploiting procedural loopholes to get out of prison. This all comes back to how this may affect [politicians] in their bid for reelection. It’s political gutlessness.

Anthony: While incarcerated, you took education seriously. You took vocational courses, received college credits, and became a Jaycee (a member of the United States Junior Chamber). You taught business accounting and entrepreneurial courage, tutored Spanish-speaking prisoners, and eventually, began working in the law library, which led to you becoming a paralegal. Why did education take such precedence for you?

James: On my third day in prison, we went to the movie hall to watch a film. I saw a guy get stabbed. He lay in the aisle and bled to death. The CO (correctional officer) didn’t notice until the movie was over. I saw right away what a highly aggressive and violent place prison can be. I had to learn how to navigate that.

I’ve always held education in high esteem. It was instilled in me as a child that to have a level playing field in society, I needed a good education. As a Mexican-American, people would look down on me, as if I were stupid. Education was something that no one could take away from me.

When I was in my junior year at Quigley South Preparatory Seminary School, we had a college recruitment day. I remember this senior from Notre Dame in this gold jacket, handing out gold pamphlets. I knew then that I really wanted to go to college.

And I did, with the Northwestern Prison Education Program. Professor Jennifer Lackey’s vision of higher education for men and women in prison was amazing. I was being taught the same courses that are taught on campus. In prison, they take away so much, but this program gives you back a sense of being a person. I have forged lasting relationships with individuals I never would have otherwise met. This is the vision of community that Jennifer Lackey tried to build for us.

Anthony: As a legal advocate, you helped get 14 new trials, two exonerations, and more than 100 re-sentencings. In total, you say you’ve worked nearly 1,000 cases. All of this time, you were helping fellow prisoners get the results they sought before legal counsel could get it for you.

James: I felt like I was in a unique position to help, to know what it is like to be wrongfully convicted and stuck in this hell hole with no help and no one listening to you. I didn’t want anyone else to feel that way.

It also helped me grow and learn as a legal advocate. Here I was, in prison, winning cases and helping to get others home. It was a great feeling — these things helped me grow in ways that are hard to define. I’ve become less critical and learned that power isn’t always equated with money. There is power in knowledge and words, and I have tried to teach that to others.

Anthony: You took the LSAT and did great. How was that?

James: You know me, I don’t like to brag but it was good. I was nervous but I did well.

I want to go to law school. You don’t need a law license to help somebody. I’ve done it my whole time in prison, but I want to pass the bar. There are other innocent men and women in prison — we know some of them.

Even those who aren’t innocent need help. People who have death-by-incarceration sentencing who no longer need to be in prison — somebody who has been in prison for years and years and who has changed and is rehabilitated and not a danger to society any longer — you’re just wasting taxpayer money and robbing society of someone who will be a productive strong addition. How can we expect other people to do better if we as a society don’t do better?

Anthony: We’ve talked about some of the problems with the criminal justice system. What, in your opinion, can be done to help fix things?

James: Great question. You have to tweak some things like the appellate procedures so people are allowed to put forth innocence claims, even in the post-conviction process. You have to make things easier for prisoners’ pleas of innocence to be heard. But it goes further than that.

You have to encourage the election of progressive prosecutors like Kim Foxx and add more conviction integrity units. You also have to establish innocence commissions to get into wrongful convictions. In a state like Illinois with the corruption and manufacturing of evidence, more leeway should be given to a prisoner claiming innocence, not less. I’d also like to point out that clemency and parole are only as good as the officials in charge. We need to make sure we have the right people in those positions.

Anthony: What’s next for you?

James: Spending time with my family, getting my certificate of innocence, and going to law school.