Reform efforts by lawyer saved brother’s life. Stanislaus State honors the alum
Jacque Wilson, a Modesto native and senior attorney in the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, received an honorary doctor of humane letters from his alma mater, Stanislaus State University, during its Tuesday commencement ceremony.
Hailing from west Modesto, Wilson helped reform California’s felony murder rule, allowing his younger brother to become the first person freed under the revision.
“Such degrees are not given lightly,” Stanislaus State President Britt Rios-Ellis said at the ceremony before inviting Wilson on stage.
Wilson attended Modesto High School and Modesto Junior College before earning his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at Stanislaus State in 1997. He attended law school in San Francisco and has worked in the city’s Public Defender’s Office for 23 years. Wilson is also an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco and UC Law San Francisco.
Stanislaus State is Wilson’s first memory of a higher education institution. His father also attended, and he remembers holding his hand at age 3, walking across the courtyard and thinking to himself that he would be back someday.
When Wilson stepped out of his car Tuesday morning, he looked around campus, took some deep breaths and smelled the fresh air. He was back where it all had started, he said.
He said some members of the Black community from west Modesto either worked or taught at Stan State. The Central Valley didn’t have many Black educators, but he credited several, namely the late Cecil Rhodes, who guided and pushed him throughout. He also thanked his father for planting the seeds of possibility for his family.
Wilson said he was blown away when Stan State reached out to him about the honorary doctorate. He called it a full-circle moment. “It was essentially heaven on Earth for me,” Wilson said.
To Stan State’s graduating class, he said that if he can do it, after getting kicked out of high school and growing up on the west side, anyone can.
“Jacque’s journey — from west Modesto to the forefront of criminal justice reform and public service — is a powerful example for our students and community,” stated Rios-Ellis. “Jacque reminds us that education is not only transformative for individuals but for families, communities and entire systems. His legacy reflects the mission and values of Stan State and we are honored to celebrate his extraordinary impact on California and beyond.”
Freeing his brother
In 2009, Wilson got a call that his brother Neko had been charged with murder.
His brother was facing the death penalty for helping plan a robbery that led to the murders of a couple in their home in the Fresno County city of Kerman. Under state law at the time, a person could face murder charges for participating in a crime such as burglary or kidnapping in which someone is killed.
The law had been criticized for disproportionately targeting Black and brown communities.
“I knew him. I knew he wasn’t a killer,” said Wilson, who served as his brother’s attorney. But in law school, you’re taught that that’s just how things go, he said.
In 2018, State Sen. Nancy Skinner introduced Senate Bill 1437 to narrow the state’s felony murder doctrine. The bill passed, allowing murder charges only against those who committed or planned the killing or was a major participant in the crime and acted with “reckless indifference to human life.“
Wilson said the Modesto community rallied support as well.
A month after the bill passed and after serving nine years, his brother was freed. Since the passage of that bill, in addition to Senate Bill 775, over 1,000 people have been resentenced — 90% of them people of color and mostly women. It has also saved taxpayers nearly $1 billion.
For Wilson, it meant others wouldn’t have to endure what his family did with a loved one.
“If [the ceremony] was heaven on Earth, that was paradise on Earth,” Wilson said. “To be able to have your brother walk out of jail when they wanted to execute him.”
This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Reform efforts by lawyer saved brother’s life. Stanislaus State honors the alum."
