A WNBA star sat down in the 2019 season to help an unjustly convicted man. He simply went free.

When Jonathan Irons was 16, he was tried for robbery and assault with a weapon. According to CBS Sports, Irons was tried as an adult, and a white jury found him guilty, despite the fact that there were no witnesses, no fingerprints, no fingerprints, no DNA to prove his guilt.

Irons began his 50-year sentence in a Missouri state prison in 1998. Now, 22 years later, he is a free man, largely thanks to the tireless efforts of a WNBA superstar.

Maya Moore is arguably the most decorated professional basketball player in the US Selected in the first-round draft in 2011, she played for the Minnesota Lynx, where she became six times in the WNBA All-Star, five times All- WNBA First Team Player, four-time WNBA Champion, and WNBA Most Valuable Player in 2014.

But before the 2019 season, at the peak of his career, Moore decided to take the year off for another type of court battle, one that had wrongfully convicted a young man and sentenced him to spend most of his life behind bars. His decision rocked his sport, and there was no guarantee that sacrificing an entire season to fight for criminal justice reform would pay off.

The Moore family met Irons through a prison ministry program. According to The Undefeated, Irons would not have been eligible for parole for another 20 years, but in March a Missouri judge reversed his sentence. A series of appeals were rejected, the Supreme Court refused to accept the case, and the chief prosecutor refused to retry Irons.

That meant he was free.

Moore was in prison to meet Irons when he came out, falling to his knees in the emotional moment.

“I feel like I can live life now,” Irons said in a video from outside the prison. “I am free, I am blessed, I just want to live my life worthy of the help and influence of God … I thank all those who supported me, Maya and her family … Have a place to be at home, I am very grateful. “

Moore told Good Morning America after the Irons release, “At the time, I really felt like I could rest. I had been standing and we had been standing for so long; and it was an unforeseen moment where I felt relief. It was a kind of a moment of worship, just falling to my knees and so grateful that I did it. “

Since he hasn’t had time to really rest in the past year of working toward this goal, Moore will continue his hiatus from basketball through the 2020 season.

Minnesota Lynx coach and general manager Cheryl Reeve expressed understandably mixed feelings in a statement that sums up the power of the moment very well and also the problem that stands out:

“Maya Moore held another championship yesterday and none of us who have been blessed to have Maya in our lives are surprised. However, I cannot imagine how she will feel. I was overwhelmed to see Maya leave Jonathan Irons. The Correctional Center Jefferson City is a free man. For the past several years we have seen how she graciously committed to Jonathan’s case, and as she has done so many times on the basketball court, I put the Irons team on her back. Maya and everyone involved were able to reach their Jonathan exoneration goal.

I also can’t help but feel a lot of anger. Maya Moore should never have had to leave her profession to participate in the fight against the two-tier criminal justice system that is based on politics, the wrongfully convicted and the sentences of the black and brown communities. The criminal justice system in the United States is far from fair and equal and it infuriates me that Maya has had to sacrifice so much to overcome this racially disparate system.

On behalf of the Lynx organization, we are very proud of Maya for her greatest career victory. I am sure that he was also voted MVP of this championship. This time there is no hardware to take home to the trophy case, just an unjustly convicted black man who went free. ”