Imagine losing 19 years of your life to imprisonment when you not only didn't commit the crime of which you are accused, but actively tried to help the victim of it.
Early in the morning on November 27, 2001, Termaine Joseph Hicks heard a woman's screaming from an alley behind a hospital in Philadelphia. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he entered the alley and found a woman who had been pistol-whipped and raped. He reached into his pocket to call 911, and the next thing he knew he'd been shot three times by the police.
One bullet punctured Hicks' lung and he was sent into emergency surgery. The police said he was the rapist, and the victim couldn't identify her assailant. All she remembered was that the rapist stopped when she saw bright lights flash, which she assumed were police car lights.
The police also claimed that Hicks had tried to pull out a gun. The officer who shot him said he shot at his chest or stomach as he lunged at them.
Hicks, who worked as an assistant manager at a South Philadelphia Popeye's and was raising a 5-year-old son, was arraigned while handcuffed to a hospital bed. The sentence for rape was 12 1/2 to 25 years in prison.
When a judge gave him the maximum 25-year sentence, Hicks said, "An innocent man can't sit in jail for long." At parole hearings, he was penalized for not taking responsibility for the crime—the one he actually didn't commit, but still spent 19 years in prison for.
Hicks fought for years to get the forensic evidence in his case reviewed. Surveillance footage, which wasn't provided to Hicks or his lawyers until after his trial, showed that a delivery truck drove up after a man in a gray hoodie had dragged the woman into the alley. Hicks' lawyers think that van's headlights caused the rapist to flee before Hicks arrived, and then the police, and those are the light the victim remembered. Hicks' coat had no hood.
According to the city's chief medical examiner, forensic analysis of bullet holes in Hicks' clothing and medical records supported Hicks' account that he had been shot in the back, not the chest or stomach like the police said. The gun that police claimed to have taken from Hicks's pocket was smeared with blood, while the inside of his pocket was clean. And according to Vanessa Potkin, a lawyer with Innocence Project, the gun was registered to an active Philadelphia police officer, who hadn't even reported it missing.
All of this evidence was available at the time of Hicks' sentencing, but It took until now for all of the pieces to come together to finally exonerate him. Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Tracy Brandeis-Roman offered Hicks a "bittersweet congratulations" after vacating the conviction. She also apologized to the rape victim.
"I am quite cognizant of the pain and the trauma of the victim, and then more pain in realizing that the wrong person was convicted," she said. "I do feel that, one case at a time, this system is being improved."
Now 45 years old, Hicks will rejoin society and try to rebuild a relationship with his son, who is now 24. Hicks has a 2-year-old grandson he's never met. He didn't want the child to see him behind bars.
Hicks has a plan. He wrote and directed 12 plays in prison, and now he wants to produce plays for the wider community, including one about his own life and what he learned from other men in prison.
After nearly two decades of wrongful imprisonment, he is "overjoyed and overwhelmed" to finally be free.
"I feel 100 pounds lighter," he told the Inquirer, before adding, "It's unfortunate and sad that it took how long it took for me to clear my name. I've been saying the same thing since day one...The things that are promised to citizens should be delivered: a fair trial, and a fair look at what's being presented."
Indeed, it's a travesty that a person can be found guilty of a crime and lose decades of their life when there is ample evidence that proves their innocence.
For more information on what the average person can do, check out Innocence Project, whose execution of their mission "to free the staggering number of innocent people who remain incarcerated, and to bring reform to the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment" helps wrongfully convicted people like Termaine Hicks regain their rightful freedom.
Ketel Marte was brought to tears during an MLB game after facing a shameful fan taunt.
Baseball manager's poignant support for a player brought to tears after shameful fan taunt
Whether they’re expecting perfection from their favorite players or, worse, behaving callously toward opposing teams, sports fans often forget that athletes are human beings. But athletic competition has the ability to unify and uplift, even amid such painful and unpleasant encounters. Take, for example, a major-league baseball game held June 24, 2025 between the home team Chicago White Sox and visiting Arizona Diamondbacks.
A shameful low point occurred when Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte was at bat in the seventh inning. Per ESPN, a fan reportedly yelled out a comment regarding Marte’s late mother, Elpidia Valdez, who died in a 2017 car accident in the Dominican Republic. Team personnel, including manager Torey Lovullo, then requested the 22-year-old fan be ejected. (Though he was remorseful and admitted his actions were inappropriate, according to an ESPN source, he was nonetheless banned indefinitely from all MLB ballparks.) "We commend the White Sox for taking immediate action in removing the fan," the MLB said in a statement. Marte reportedly declined to comment.
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While the fan’s behavior is inexcusable, it did spark a powerful and inspiring moment. After hearing the comment, Marte was visibly upset, prompting Lovullo to walk on the field, put his arm around him, and offer some words of encouragement. "[I said,] 'I love you, and I’m with you, and we’re all together, and you’re not alone,'" Lovullo said in a post-game interview, as documented by The Rich Eisen Show. "'No matter what happens, no matter what was said or what you’re heard, that guy is an idiot.’"
According to Arizona Republic, Lovullo heard the fan’s comment but didn’t want to repeat it. “I looked right at [Marte] when I heard,” he said. “I looked right at him, and he looked at the person, as well. He put his head down and I could tell it had an immediate impact on him, for sure."
Elsewhere in the post-game interview, the manager called the moment "terrible" and reflected on why he stood up for Marte. "Fans are nasty, and fans go too far sometimes," he said. "I love my players, and I’m gonna protect them…I’ve known Ketel for nine years. He’s had some unbelievably great moments and some hardships as well and some really tough moments in his life. I know those. At the end of the day, we’re human beings, and we have emotions. I saw him hurting, and I wanted to protect him."
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The following day, the Chicago White Sox X account sent out a message in support of Marte, writing, "We’re with you" and "Baseball is family." On The Rich Eisen Show, the show's host addressed the need to eradicate this kind of toxic athlete-fan interaction: "I was hearing [people saying], 'There’s no place for this in major league baseball.' There isn’t. There’s no place for this in our society. I understand that people are saying the MLB has got to do something about this. Fans have a right to heckle players—this is something that has happened forever…But there is a line."
In another recent, depressing sports moment with a beautiful coda, let’s look to Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and the eventual champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder. During the first quarter, Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton tore his right Achilles tendon—a devastating injury that could potentially sideline him for most of the 2025-2026 season. Following the game, in a lovely display of sportsmanship, Thunder point-guard and league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went to the Pacers locker room to check on his competitor. In a press conference, he said, "You just hate to see it, in sports in general. But in this moment, my heart dropped for him. I can't imagine playing the biggest game of my life and something like that happening. It’s so unfortunate."
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