“It woke me up,” Sefolosha, 36, says of his glimpse at what happens when black men who aren’t as wealthy as he is—men like George Floyd—get swept unjustly into the system because they can’t afford a lawyer.
Following his own incident on April 8, 2015, in which then Hawks teammate Pero Antiu0107 was also arrested, Sefolosha was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, and he was offered a plea deal—the means by which more than 90% of criminal cases in the U.S. are resolved, often because of the cost of a legal defense. Sefolosha went to trial knowing that if he lost, he would face jail time, possible deportation and the end of his NBA career.