JUSTICE FOR VERNEAL JIMERSON BY PAUL ELLEDGE

Paul Elledge had the good fortune to meet and photograph Verneal Jimerson for Newsweek. Verneal (along with three other young, African American men) was wrongly convicted of murder in 1985 in what became known as the Ford Heights Four case. Eleven years later, Verneal and the other men were proven innocent and exonerated. Their case lead to the Governor of Illinois declaring a moratorium on the death penalty - as Verneal would have been wrongfully put to death had DNA evidence not proven his innocence. 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' Martin Luther King, Jr.