Man sentenced to 100 years in prison made himself a promise — 2 decades later, he got accepted into law school

A prisoner who had promised himself a better future achieved it marvelously. The person had been sentenced to 100 years in prison but with his hard work and dedication, managed to get into a law school in a remarkable feat. The man, Bernard McKinley, got the opportunity to join one of the most prestigious law schools in the US, as per ABC News.

The man was arrested for gang-related murder as a 16-year-old and was sentenced to 100 years in prison when he was 19. The man had to serve his sentence in a maximum security prison. But he was predominantly thinking about one thing as he went in. "I promised myself before I got out of that bus that no matter what the outcome was, you know, I was just going to try to do better for myself," McKinley expressed. "I knew that I wanted to better myself, and I did that." McKinley started at Northwestern Law School during the fall of last year and is supposed to graduate with the class of 2027. The acceptance rate at the law school is only about 4 percent, as per the outlet.
The man's quest to become a lawyer began when he noticed the financial burden of the legal fees on his family. So, he obtained his General Educational Development diploma while he was still in prison and represented himself. McKinley also ended up helping other people in need of legal aid. "I was giving back and contributing to those who were in need of help - you know, in spite of them being incarcerated with me, they were still human beings," he shared. The man managed to get his sentence reduced from 100 years to 25 years and took the LSAT while he was still serving his sentence. McKinley was released from prison in 2023 and became the first graduate from Northwestern's Prison Education Program to get accepted into any law school.
The outlet's YouTube page described how next to impossible the entire journey was. The man graduated, took the LSAT and applied for law school before he was released. He was determined to do something for himself, regardless of what the outcome was. "I started understanding law a little by little," the man revealed about how his paralegal education in the prison helped him. PEP or the Prison Education Program at the place was started in 2018 and is the only program in the country that gives degrees to incarcerated people from the top 10 universities.
The program's director, Jennifer Lackey, told the outlet, "I did some work with incarcerated people much earlier on in my life and, you know, became an educator and knew that providing post-secondary educational opportunities to people who were incarcerated would be a very significant way of positively intervening in the criminal legal system." She added, "Bernard just worked tirelessly. He was relentlessly focused and he just sort of tuned out all of the distractions with that single goal in mind of coming home and going to law school. And here he is." Truly, an inspiration.