Ava DuVernay’s dramatic Netflix miniseries “When They See Us” chronicles the infamous wrongful conviction of five black and Latino teenagers in New York City for the brutal 1989 rape and assault of a young white woman who was attacked while she was jogging in Central Park. In its depiction of Manhattan District Attorney Linda Fairstein, who oversaw the investigation and prosecution of the young men, the series has sparked a long-overdue conversation about the role of prosecutors in perpetrating false convictions.

A.J. acted as a decoy in an armed robbery committed by her boyfriend in downtown San Francisco in 2005. She was sitting in a parked car a block away when he attempted to rob a second man 15 minutes later, then shot and killed him. Today, A.J. sits in prison in California serving a 25-years-to-life sentence for that murder.