The Case of James Soto

📻 Episode #549
🎙️ Hosted by Lauren Bright Pacheco
📅 Oct 30, 2025

✓ EXONERATED

About This Episode

Case status as carried in this site's original 2026 profiles. Independent record verification is rolling out episode by episode — statuses are being re-checked against court and registry sources and date-stamped as verified.

The Case

Wrongful Conviction with Lauren Bright Pacheco is back November 13th with all new episodes. So today, we’re revisiting one of the most memorable episode from her last season, episode #454, James Soto:James “Jimmy” Soto was wrongfully convicted at age 20 for a 1981 double homicide in Chicago’s Little Village despite no physical evidence and multiple alibi witnesses. Jimmy and his cousin David spent 42 years in prison — the longest wrongful conviction sentences in Illinois history. While incarcerated, Jimmy earned a college degree and became a jailhouse lawyer, helping others, including his former cellmate Robert Almodovar. The two formed a lifelong bond — and now, both exonerated, they’re rebuilding their lives together on the outside.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/life-after-42-yrs-of-wrongful-imprisonment https://paroleillinois.org/

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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts

Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.

00:06:55
“Speaker 2: of summers at David's house when they were living in Speaker 2: little village. And so that's how I wound up getting Speaker 2: involved in any gang was because my cousin had been killed. Speaker 2: You know, I took it pretty hard, and as a Speaker 2: young he was seventeen, so I would have been eighteen.”

00:24:40
“Speaker 2: my attorney didn't do this, or the prosecution did this. Speaker 2: And so when I was able to do that, I Speaker 2: guess they would see the hope emanating from me, and Speaker 2: so it would make them feel a little bit more Speaker 2: at ease. But there was times it wasn't easy. Prisons”

00:39:55
“Speaker 4: this day, you dream about that day, you just already Speaker 4: fantasy about it. Speaker 3: When it do come, you're just like, is it really happening? Speaker 4: I was a static and coming home of course, being Speaker 4: reunited with my daughter and my family. You know.”

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← #548 Jeff Boppre #550 Oscar Eagle →

Also on the podcast: #142 Josh Dubin on James Dailey · #148 James Davis · #205 James Davis