>> joining the conversation with your phone call, facebook comments, texts and tweets. sunday, january 2nd. at noon eastern, in depth on book tv. [inaudible conversations] >> good evening, everyone, and now to continue this important event of the wisconsin book festival. i do want to say with respect to our speaker tonight, in another year, this will ab packed house to hear you talk about this excellent book. my name is kenneth frazier and

i'm the director of uw-madison libraries. our first group is sponsor of the book festival and tonight's presentation by jarrett adams. and this will provide small growth for scholars who use university libraries to do to research to write books and we start to approve all of the those in the campus, and including the great archives of the wisconsin historical society, which, as you know is located on the madison campus. and we support the university's efforts to encourage students of color to consider careers in academic libraries and archives. and if that sounds interesting to you, and it might because you're here tonight, we invite you to join us. the evening begins by describing an injustice done to

two young black men in 1998. young men who have eventually become mr. adams' clients and who are still unjustly imprisoned, 20 years later. 1998 is the same year that jarrett adams himself was convicted of rape at age 17. a crime which he, too, was innocent of committing. jarrett adams writes with remarkable empathy for others like these two men and even for the individuals who did him great harm. this book could have been all about himself. his remarkable odyssey from being a teenager sentence today nearly 30 years in prison and now leading a firm practicing law in three seemed to be four

states. his book is a fast, compelling read, but he was released in 2007 on bond, not yet exonerated and is healing from that incarceration took much longer. he earned his juris doctorate and now leads offices in new york, chicago, milwaukee, and next year, in los angeles. mr. adams is co-founder of life of a justice, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping ex-- exonerate, i knew it would come out. it's for people who are unjustly imprisoned to help

them rebuild their lives, please join me in welcoming jarrett adams to the podium. >>. [applause] >> thank you all. i'm tied to this seat by electronic wire. but i want to thank you for your welcome and i can tell you most personal read the book. and i hope that you guys aren't expecting a scholar type, big type of lecture, that's not me and that's how i wrote the book and with that i won't take over because i know my good friend steve is ready for questions. >> thank you for coming, my name is steven wright, i'm an associate clinical professor at the wisconsin innocence project.

it's my honor to be with jarrett today, but mindful as i read his story that in 2020, the 129 exonerations in the united states, accept 1700 years of people who were sacrificed to the criminal justice system. in 2019, that number was 143 individuals. 50% of those cases involve some type of state misconduct, whether it's police or prosecutorsment and we're very mindful and i'm sure many of you follow the national reports, that wisconsin convicts black men than any other state in the union. black men in particular are 12 times more likely than white men to go to jail or prison in the state of wisconsin. although african-americans only make up about 6% of the state's population, we represent about 42% of the population of

individuals who are incarcerated. jarrett's story is extraordinarily reading, but unfortunately very common. i guess i will stop there. jarrett rightfully received a great deal of attention and featured on nbc news and cnn and every major national paper. so with that, i guess i'm wondering why write the book, what more did you have to share? >> well, there's a long answer behind it, but i'll shorten it out for the sake of tonight. so, i got my law degree and i graduate, and recall going home and you get the paper degree when you're at graduate ration, right? and i know when the diploma came in, i remember running to my mother's house and i wanted to give it to her and she said

and started to cry. i said i thought we were done crying. she said, no, i'm crying because i know that you aren't going to go all to do big law and forget about what it was like to be isolated on that island in the courtroom with no help. i know you're going to go and practice law and do something that will pay things forward and help other people out. so, i run off with the law degree and very early i realized that i wasn't going to save every black kid like jarrett adams with this one law degree. so like spooning water out of the ocean so i had to come up with something different. so i read new books and continue to read books, i know i may look as cool as a cucumber, but i'm a nerd, and

i'm reading a back about south africa right now. i started to read different books, the innocent man. what i didn't want to do, i didn't want to have the book, that's another wrong conviction book. and i spent time with my aunt who is still alive and read the history who i was and important to write the book, how often does the news article betray -- portray young man, as if they were born at the scene, and depictions are black boys and black men and criminalizing. i wrote the book look at what it does to the community. the biggest victim in this story is it the community, and here is why.

the community, just like the one in milwaukee, is feeding the criminal justice system its youth and in turn, the criminal justice system is feeding the city of milwaukee and many other cities, 35 to 40-year-old men who have been rehabbed for decades or more. when i started to write the book, it was a call to action. we're the cavalry, a call to action to say, look, how do mobilize and how do we take this book, which i believe is a man u script for those who have the power to make the changes. the article that just came out, it's funny, i wrote the book, you know, started writing the book two years ago. that's one of the first things i put in the book is because i met these men, these men who are carried to prison as boys

and grew up there. i said okay, let me write this thing in a way, number one, anybody with a child can look at this and say, man, this is god awful and once i get you there, let me take you into the community where the predominant amount of people who fill them up come from. that's the way i wrote the book, it's a call to action. if, and i've said this before, when i heard my accomplishment being read in the offices, if it impressed you, let me press upon you the importance to save other young black boys because that's how you get to safety and security in our country. you don't get there by locking everyone up and wisconsin has proven that by the numbers. so, we'll get into a little bit more about the wrongful conviction and the process. one of the things that sort of impressed me the power of the emotion in the book. and there--

you will explain to folks, but a fair amount of time in solitary. >> i did. >> and i think one of the 860 days straight? >> there was 360 days and then there was 300 days the second time. >> and so, i mean-- how do you convey that sort of be alone in that space, not only wrongfully convicted, but then the doc finds out that you're helping people and they want to punish you for that. >> that's what it was really about. and to say that it was life and compare how humane it is. go lock a puppy up in a clock set for days at a time and let somebody tell on you see what happens. if it's not okay to do to a pet, how is it okay to do to a human being in any capacity, right? so the thing about the prison system and specifically in

wisconsin is this, the time that i was incarcerated they opened up the wisconsin secure program which was called -- before. -- i'll use the baseball theme, if you build it, they will come. when they built that prison with all the beds and off the same thing we've got it now. off of fear, and one was killed in prison and they took that and they waged the political will to get a budget to build more prisons and did it out of fear, the same way they got the criminal law and sent people of color for crack, and not people who have some title the same thing. so when i started to realize that i became a tutor in the prison system. so i had the naive ignorance of

believing that these people were making choices to come back and that wasn't the case, right? and what i also realized was this, there's a difference between reading and understanding what your he reading and i met so many men who were pleading guilty because they just simply didn't understand the laws and stuff like that. i'll give you one in particular. there was one call manufacturing a weapon and you would get manufacturing of a weapon, especially for black men, because they would take the razor, break off the tip to get a close shave, because why? blackmen's hair curl up and get ingrown hair. and for him pleading guilty to this rule infraction as manufacturing a weapon so i started to look, stop pleading guilty to that because there's no intent, you're shaving with

this. so i started to do-- all of a sudden i'm getting snatched out of my cell and they're accusing me of stuff with informants that made no sense and the funny thing is along this ride, so glad he's here, keith finley, one of the founders of the wisconsin innocence project. he was working on my case for years and there were students assigned, and stuff like that. so stuff was going on. i was many times so he could see what was going on and essentially, people stopped pleading guilty to the rule infractions and the sanctuaries on-- they couldn't fill up the bed space in the segregation unit. and what is segregation, it's beds. what does wisconsin have a problem with, overcrowding.

someone was going to the hole. it's like a ticket quota system and it happens real life, real time inside of these institutions. so let's jump into the book is two parts, the first half discusses your experience as a victim of the criminal justice system and the second half, becoming an advocate condition the system. i don't quite know where to begin and you were talking about the injustice that you suffered, but what stands out to me is the way that the criminal justice part happened. but the background is that you have gone to a party. despite witnesses and a litany of evidence showing that you were not guilty, you are falsely accused, and the witnesses-- excuse me, the accuser has a lot of problems that several judges at least when you're convicted said this better

sound credible to me. and let's start the point, the police called on your door, saying hey, come visit us and you don't know what's going on and you're 17 at this point and you don't have a lawyer and you decide not to go with your mom so you go there and you think that telling the truth. >> yes. >> about what happens will be the solution and they'll understand and you'll go home. >> worked like that on law and order. [laughter] >> you know, i mean, honestly, you know, so that's exactly what i thought. and also, another reason why i started the book explaining to people how i was raised because it lets you understand how easily it is, and easily how it could happen and i mentioned about my grandmother and grandfather and the reason why, there's a lot of us, a lot of family, right?

and we still weren't prepared and the reason why, no one faced anything like that. we weren't going to jail or anything like that. >> my grandfather was a lady from mississippi, but let me tell you something when people talked about it you would think she was seven feet tall. she wouldn't play. the police and school wasn't calling the house because it was going to be a problem. so it was always you respect authorities, you do what you're supposed to do, you tell the truth and that's how we're taught when actuality, black kids should be taught a little bit more than that, when i saw that car at my door, i had graduated from high school, and summer break and as a high school -- that summer we were trying to hold onto friends we knew were going everwhere and hanging out and partying and knew it was coming toward an

end. >> toward the end of the summer, bagging groceries and making a little bit of extra money and stuff like that, and so when i get home, i'm graduated now and at home all the time and parents are gone, there's a car at the door, robbery homicide. so i called right away because i knew they had the wrong jarrett adams, right? i called and they got me, they said, look come down, you'd never been arrested here, and you come down and clear it up. and my mother gets out, and-- they said how old are you, i'm 17. >> and the entire interview, being called kid, boy, son. kid boy son. we were the three black men from chicago, just that fast. and just that fast and i just, you know, i-- and i wrote this book in a way

so that it's a tutorial. i remember every word from tupac's cd. when i was in that police station i didn't know the amendments. i didn't know i could walk out there. i didn't know i could simply say i want a lawyer and things would be over. and i thought telling the truth, and [inaudible] -- that was my false belief. >> and then the police officer from the chicago police. >> yes. >> department and someone who has come from here in wisconsin down there. >> yes. >> and you know, having just, you know, you get this very much in the book. interrogating automotive didn't come with an open mind, did not. i mean, it was a foregone dop

collusion, once you stepped into the room. at what point did you know that? at what point did you sort of of move the optimism that telling the truth and standing up would not -- would not get you out of this? >> in all craziness, as i look back at it right now, so they didn't arrest me right there. all right, they let me out police station. but what they were doing, now i know what they were doing. >> they had gotten, they knew all three of us, because we were-- look, we had -- stuff like that, they knew all three of us, they decided to interview me first and here is why. because we went up to this staggered. i stayed there playing video games with a young man who they took a statement from. >> this is the night. >> this is the night of the accusation, a three-page statement written the next day

by the unman who would ultimately save our life so they kept trying to figure out, well, this kid is saying that one of them being about his friend and following downstairs and they were talking to me, it was the conversation was, what did he do? you-- you see how easily it could have been that someone's trying to save themselves not knowing what's right and could have done something wrong and totally just threw the case upsidedown. so, i you know, i leave there, i wasn't arrested as a 17-year-old kid i went to the counsel of my friends who are 17. and man, if you were going to be arrested, they're poking around and telling the truth, you're good. boy, oh, boy. and shocking dismay on my face when a caravan of police show

up about a week and a half later, right? because what they did was they took that interview and they used my interview to go fit the missing holes and blanks in their case and so, this caravan of police show up and you talk about-- i will never forget the embarrassment, shock and dismay on my family's face. my mother was mad, in wisconsin -- when she found out the name of the campus. >> mom, come on, man, i didn't -- i just never, as naive as this may sound, i never for a doubt thought that things wouldn't be okay. and what's extraordinary about it, when you get here to wisconsin there are signs of who ep--

hope, and you go through preliminary hearing and show the evidence. the judge at that hearing says this is a really bad case. i will never forget his name, judge shue, he looked at the case, he heard the first-- because this is something that i want to make sure that i say as well. you guys ever heard of the facts of the case? you know the facts of the case are? they're the police report. you understand? so sometimes people become, you know, confused. they are like the facts of the case. the facts of the case are the police report and it was written, i thought it was a script, you know, that's how theatrical things were, we were supposed to have snuck up a flight of stairs and rape someone without using a gun, or anything, and no conversation at all and flee the building. meanwhile, they had the witness's statement which

disproved that and knew that. and so i am just dismayed at the allegation itself, especially because i didn't know the exact allegation until the preliminary hearing. and the judge wasn't buying it based on the accuser. and he said i don't see it, but bond it over. that was the worst mistake. >> he had the power. >> he had the power to do it, but not only that, it is very rare to get a judge that has not been a prosecutor or coming somewhere from high litigation and white collar, who has no, no understanding that not everybody in front of you is guilty of what they're accused of. so that judge had an opportunity, but i understand

the realities of it. and we go on to a judge, you can tell that the atmosphere in the air shifted. i mean, literally, i kept asking my lawyer at the time, likings, you know, where are the black people at? where are the neighbor people at. no asians up here? because we're in a courtroom and the only thing of color is the judge's robe and the -- and so i said how do you get 40 people, voir dire or whatever that latin term is, 40 people and not a person of color. yeah, it's the luck of the draw. okay, the lucky of the draw, can you challenge this? >> no, this, this someone never been through this going through it, that's the nightmare journey in the book. if don't understand it, that's

most of the people who go through the system. they're not-- boy, oh, boy, did i realize how much of a kid i was while going through this. i thought i knew it all thought i was ready to go out on my own and saying terms i have no idea what they're talking about, and one of the most important forks in the road came when there was a mistrial and then there with as a retrial and me and my codefendant, dimitri, realized that our remaining codefendant whose own family was able to hire an attorney, his attorney filed a motion appeal to bar it from being tried again. and the lawyer, we get to court, and the lawyer's like, hey, you know, let's talk out in the hall. i didn't know that, but i know now, the lawyer asks you to talk in the hall when you get

somewhere and you have no idea what the conversation is, it's not going to be good. it's not going to be good. you're out in the hall the lawyer is like, hey, look, the codefendant filed a motion and you know, we want to go ahead and proceed because you saw what happened during the first trial so for people who haven't read the book, we were tried twice, the first trial was a mistrial because the police report wasn't testified to, and so the state moved to amend the charges at theened of trial right before it went to the jury and asked, and requested a mistrial to declare the precedence. >> at the end of the first trial, the prosecutor goes to the judge and says i know i can't win. >> that's essentially what he did. and you would think it's over with. we were retried again and ordered know the to talk to each other and like the fools we were, we didn't talk to each other, right. so when we get back up to the

second trial and that's when the lawyer asked me to come out into the hall. i was 18 then. even as a 18-year-old, this didn't make no sense what the man was saying to me. you're saying break up the three in the defense, for what? he was an attorney which i think we need to talk to us, he was assigned to us, and got paid when the case was closed. and -- so the lawyer is like, hey, look, you saw what happened during the first trial, i think this thing would go over with, go back to school and you're good kids and i'm looking across him and looking at my mother and my mother, man, at this time it's like the wrinkles and the creases of anguish on her forehead were

tattooed there. i knew this guy wasn't making any sense about a trial strategy, but i knew i put her through this. didn't commit rape, but i snuck out of the house and lied and told her i was going to the friend's house. i was responsible for that. i owed this woman and i was going to pay it back and he i thought if i could get it over with and get my life back together. five hour drive back and forth from chicago. so i proceeded to go here in the remaining codefendant, we went to trial, never impeached the witnesses on the inconsistencies. never called a witness. and their strategy was a no defense strategy. never heard of that in my life at 17, 18, you know what? no defense. because they can't prove their case, that's a solid defense. and there's no defense attorney worth their salt ever going into a trial like that. and. >> the case is sort of a study

on the role that money can play in justice. >> absolutely. >> and so, arrested one of three innocent men accused. two of you get a state appointed two, and one of you gets a private attorney. >> yes. >> and then in the first case the two state appointed attorneys basically just sort of let the private attorney do all the work. >> yes, they're riding coat tails, they were literally sitting there and picking off their last ties and the paid attorney did the question, the and it was just like, look, our attorneys didn't even give an opening because of the paid attorney at the time. and it was joe boyle. so, it just is scary that no one with authority would say, look, let's stop this.

this isn't right. but i believe that-- i know that the prosecutor knew that his evidence had nothing to do with any allegation of a crime. his evidence was the historical depiction of young black men and you've got a white accuser. so for him, he was going to get this done, you know, on representation. and it was easy for them to press forward with this, you know, we were -- we were divided and conquered at that point. and i'll never forget, you know, part of the reason, the journey to get here has been exhausting, but i've never took a time out because my mother and my aunt didn't take one and i'll never forget just looking, i'm going to turning around and looking at my mother in the courtroom sitting at the bench and just how sunk in other eyes

were into her head. and she had aged, she looked like my grandmother in the middle of this. and i said, what is going on? you know we didn't do this and said, that's not -- this isn't about the truth for you. you know, this is about the truth there'd be a lot of-- in the '60s in the south and so, asked me the question when did i realize this wasn't looking good. that's when i realized it wasn't looking good then. so the first trial, the private attorney and the two state appointed attorneys, that's he ones with the prosecutor at the end basically says i'm not going to win so, and for reasons that boggles everyone's minds, you are allowed to be retried. >> retried. >> the private attorney figured out that he wants to appeal your codefendant's case.

your attorneys don't figure that out. so you. >> they knew-- >> they knew and didn't do anything. >> they knew and didn't do anything an and made the decision without giving us a heads-up and classic assistance of council and-- >> and so you go to a second trial and the state decide to go on and this time because your friend has -- is going through appeal, it's just and then your other codefendant dimitri, and both of you have the same attorneys who rode the coat tails before. >> both of us had the same stellar counsel who just sat there, they just sat there and i can't-- and there was no reason why they shouldn't have joined the appeal. the peel appeal was saying

mistrial with double-jeopardy and can't retry. and it's directly of the heart where the mistrial was. and for them not to join is unexcusable. >> and i read this and especially as a professor. you know, it seems like there's just one constitutional violation after another. you know, later not all the exculpatory efforts, witness statements don't get to folks and we know that you're subject to unreasonable bails. they specifically exclude the four or five people of color to be on the jury in the state and bumps them. and one of the things i wasn't particularly surprised by, but surprised it didn't, you know, put a light bulb over your attorney's head is the argument of the state beginning with the police and the prosecutor is

why would this young white woman sleep with three black men, or why would she accuse three black men and they said that specifically in the courtroom. >> listen, i thought our name was three black boys, three black men from chicago. throughout the trial. >> and an anvil should have been dropped on my head that's so obvious. that's the thing that kept saying that and he was screaming it the end of the first trial, this is a race-based trial they're trying to run, judge, you should stop this. and it didn't happen. on top of that, so i can't go past this without mentioning this. the state public defense system in wisconsin isn't broken, it was never working. right. you have a system that is-- the state public defender's

office is overwhelmed. what's the safety valve for that. >> create a fund you can assigned experienced attorneys and pay them a decent rate. we're not talking $500 an hour or anything like that, but right now, the state pay is not incentivizing good representation, it's pushing it away. >> right. >> people who are good lawyers aren't taking and representing folks because of the state pay and so, for $75 an hour, that's good for some attorneys who can't generate their own business and stuff like that, but that's not going to get you the constitutionally effective representation all the time. so, you think about this. if we really wanted to know should have got it right, why aren't the scales leveled for public defense? why are those like john bergdahl doing civil suits to

sue the state to get its own citizens of the state? i don't want to come across as being this brilliant science major anything like that. i'm telling you, i've lived and looked and watched and i'm telling you right now, we could fix this thing, but there are people who aren't affected by it who aren't eager to fix it and the people who are benefitting from the prison system and the jobs that it create who are achieving not to do what is right to save the lives of folks and many may be incident. >> and one of the things that's effort in your book. the state has the police to do investigations. >> right. >> part of the reason that you were able to vindicate yourself is there were witnesses at the party, you know, no one talked

to and had you had investigators you could have sent them down and the police had talked to them because they handed over the documents. >> they never turned over the statements and they knew what happened the night-- the next night, but that wasn't-- you know, this was a lay-up in so many words, you know, they had the elements and fixings for what historically worked. i can't use that word enough, historical, historical, historical. that's how we change and get to a better place, right. we can't block out history and be afraid to hurt people's feelings because the only way you're going to fix things ahead of the road is knowing how was the road built and that is, that is the thing that just kept -- it just, i just kept saying to myself from the first time that this took place all the way up until the innocence project walked me off in 2007, i just kept saying this is going to be over with any time

and they'll get it right and you're talk ago decade, now, that goes by. and so i remember, i remember asking the attorney about an investigator and i remember him saying something about a budget and the point you just made was important. at the disposal. state, we can't discount how huge that is. when they say state versus so-and-so, they're suggesting what they mean, that the state can bring in federal investigators to look at stuff. they can get a.t.f., you name it, all the letters that come with the government power. so for my public defender, even if he wanted to get an investigator, this would have had to be a process, right, of going to the court, asking for a budget and it's just, again, it's not conducive to getting it right. do we want to get it right is the question. because if we don't want to get it right, you don't give public

defenders the resources they need to hire more bodies. you don't give the state defender system the opportunity to really pay attorneys who know what they're doing to provide representation and so, this is about want and desire in terms of the fixable issues in the book. >> yeah, and so, i'm going to move onto the experience, once you are convicted, but one of the things that sort of struck me was at sentencing, the judge says something like, i was going to give you 20 years, but i didn't like your attitude so i'm going to give you 28. >> yeah, that was real. i -- so when i knew that the fix was in and we were going to be found guilty because that second trial was a day and a half, no witnesses, i knew what time it was when i turned and looked at my mother, and i just knew what was going on, so i

just couldn't-- i couldn't have my aunties and my mother sit up in this room, in this courtroom and hear me be depicted as someone ever than who they raised so i stood up, i want to apologize to everyone in here, my mom and everyone in this room, but i'm not going to apologize for a rape that never happened, it's not true and i pray some day you tell the truth. so the judge overheard this after the jury's findings and when i came back for sentencing, she told me what you just said eight more years, because she said i wasn't remorseful. i didn't know that remorseful was on the penal code. and she said, what she tried to do to punish me really saved the trajectory of mine and

including dimitri. because i went to the maximum, there was no consideration of me going to medium or anything like that dimitri said at dodge, and he's at medium. and i'm celled up with an older white dude been there for a long time and i remember, it was him who just gave me a wake-up call because there was an incident, and someone was attacked and they locked everyone doubt on i'm on the phone with my mom and, and-- i'm trying my best, from the chicago public school education, doing the best to explain to my mom and aunts, saying how does someone never arrested get 28 years in prison? and then my other auntie was like, forget that, how does someone use the presence of three black boys as the emment of -- and i can't answer the

questions, i'm literally like a baby and i can't answer the questions and i remember my cell mate saying, man, let me talk to you. and he just was like, i don't understand what you're doing. you're going out here and you're playing basketball, and you're playing-- and trying to know as being the best basketball player and chess player. let me read your paper work. he read it, he mentioned the witness who came up. >> the witness who was there for almost the entire thing. >> whose testimony never got to the judge. >> never got there at and he wrote the statement. >> he had like a three sentence little note inside of my paper work i never paid attention to, it was missed for that and that's when i started to write-- who was representing, you've got to find this dude and we--

then it came out the statement. and the thing about it was, when the statement came out. the prosecution, almost immediately dismissed the charges against the remaining codefendant. >> this is the person who had the paid attorney. >> you wrote the paid attorney, this statement is out there. the paid attorney was able to hire an investigator and brought it out and when it was to the prosecutor, the prosecutor said, we're done. the fact that three of you have been charged, one of you with the private attorney is at home, you're serving 28, your codefendant is serving 20. >> 20 years. >> okay. 20 years. now, so i thought that it's the evidence was strong enough to garner a dismissal, it most certainly was strong enough to get me and dimitri a new trial. the prosecutor said well, your

strategy that didn't include calling witnesses, so, i mean, that's not our problem, and they essentially made us go the long way. >> yeah. >> and we appealed seven years more and there's no doubt, i have started to write the habeas issues, i pointed out to the innocence project. >> an opportunity for state court to go to the federal court. >> so i pointed out the issues, and the innocence project took the draft, and they, you know, it's two issues, the elements, because there was no-- the element there's no accusation, it was crazy how we get this charge and get maxed out, but second thing was ineffective assistance of counsel, but there's no doubt in my mind had it not been for the name of the wisconsin innocence project i would still

be in there. and i know this, based on the work that we're doing now, on state of wisconsin. it's too easy for folks sitting in their seat to just say no and that's it without a hearing, but the name is still-- the name and also what happened with my codefendant was what, you know, created the perfect storm, but let me tell you more about this. so, now, i have the innocence project litigating the habeas throughout. the dimitri is in a different prison so we're not able to communicate so he ended up ultimately missing a deadline for the federal habeas, i go through and my conviction is reversed and this is through the motion and interest of justice. in front of the same judge who gave me 28 years, quote, unquote, she said, it is clear

that the court didn't have all the evidence in front of it so we're going to overturn this conviction and dimitri, he came on three months after i did. so do you know the attorney general by the prosecutor doing our case, who now elevated to the attorney general's office, appealed the case to the appellate court and the appellate court reinstated the conviction of dimitri and said it's because he missed the dead low pressure. never said anything about innocence, guilt, none of that. just simply said he missed the deadline and the sentencing court. the circuit court court did not have the authority to grant the-- something that's called the interest of justice, i don't know what else, but the court said, no, that doesn't fit so you've got to ask yourself why

are we giving these opinions. why are there so many barriers to getting released in a post conviction system? because again, if the story of jarrett adams is impressive, let me impress on you, we've been at the same thing as before back at the conversation of race. and i don't-- i'm a lawyer i'm not a scholar, right, and until we address this thing for real, and start to address equality, we're not going to get past this at all. if there was someone on that bench, or someones on that bench in the appellate court who could have saw this for what it was, they would have done exactly what the thurgood marshall quote said, sometimes you've just got to do what is right and let the law catch up and until-- and in this speaks volumes, right? we can't keep allowing the food

the way it is, we've got to change the chefs. we need to utilize the book to mobilize and how 0 to get it done. every state has its own policing power. every county criminal court that you live in, there needs to be a pocket of a group created to old judges accountable and i'm not going to lie, i have been in that booth and played abracadabra with the judges and i don't do that now, and it's important that we know who we're electing, who people are because we have to change the people who are making the decisions because their decisions are keeping other-- i'm in the motion, or belief that there aren't other innocent that aren't in the prison system. and locking up black men, this

thing is like a car wash, sometimes the windows don't get cleaned. and mistake are made and now it comes down to the people who are innocent right now and how do we put the candidates to replace them because they are the opressors of the quality and justice that we need to move forward. >> okay, i think we have about 10 minutes and the microphone over here, i'm told. >> [inaudible] . >> the microphone-- that's how you did a good job. >> we talked a lot about your experience going through, let's talk a little bit, what do you want people to know about your hive since and your passion for helping other men who haven't been able to. >> first and foremost, i'm not here because i'm -- i'm here

because i did it all on my own -- i have a strong family structure like my mom and my aunts and i had people in the community who reached out and extended their palms and pulled me up. and i had a former assistant state's attorney by the time the mike monocle who took me under his wing when i got to chicago and continued to build a relationship with keith finley, the innocence project. i'm of-counsel m milwaukee because i wanted not just a presence, but i wanted to try to spare something that would tackle that article. i'll say this, i've never been born here, never had an i.d. in wisconsin, but i've got sweat equity in citizenship. right. so i am not proud of that that came out. that's embarrassing, to be

known for locking up the most black then, now, come on, that can't be what it is. we have to go from having the conversation about it to implementing things and changes in it so that's why i wanted to have a presence here because so many letters i get from men who are still incarcerated, who was incarcerated and i'm there, and telling, we're not doing a good job of it. and the numbers, and you'll see in the book, it tells you that, 50, 60% of the people incarcerated in wisconsin have had experience in the system before. so let me use another example. and imagine it's a car company, right. imagine if a car company had 60% of the cars come back to the production line after two, three years off of the production line.

right? congress would have a national debate, you know, trying to set this car company down because it's a danger, it's a risk to the community so i go back to getting back into society. look they're coming back, one, two years, i know this because the scariest thing i saw in prison wasn't attack of violence it was watching somebody go home in the winter time and come back by the next summer. so it's like, okay, how do we find the value and time to shut down a corporation when the product keeps coming back and no one wants to have conversation about integrating folks back into the community and importantly, give the community resources. and the only way to fix it is to empower the community and give it the resources it needs to fix what's there. think about, think about what you use every day at home. think about a tv or whatever it is, if something breaks in your

home and you use it all the time, you usually know how to fix it. and comes down to this, do you have the resources, do you have the glue, do you have the tape or syrup, i used syrup one day, never worked. [laughter] >> so now, you look at that and you say to yourself, okay, that's how we fix this thing, right? we build the communities as strong as we can because they have to deal with the problems in their community. and we can't do that if we continue to-- with the political talk and, you know, everybody runs the campaign and about criminal justice reform and as soon as they get into the office, we're over there fighting with people. >> and one question, i think, over here. >> i'm interested in the underlying reality of a crime you were accused of. was it there really was an assault and got the three brown

guys who perpetrated it on the supposed victim lied about the whole thing. did you find out? . >> you did not read the book. >> you've got to read the book. >> to be inspired. >> no, you've got to read the book, man. [laughter] >> and see, here is the thing, with all respect and sincerity, right, that's not a one minute answer. you've got to read the book. that's what you have to do. this was a false accusation and it sprung out of an embarrassing encounter, you've got to read the book. >> i surely will read the book, however, since you say it was a false accusation, the question i have is, is there any sense of justice that the person who made the false accusation, basically just walks off and lives her life? >> the unfortunate part about this is, this isn't just my case, this is with all cases, up that i know of, where someone is lying as a witness for the state. there are no repercussions,

they can tell all you want to tell you part of the reason is if they start to lock up people who are lying, they run the risk that people won't dom come forward and all the nonsense, i'll say this, we were kids and the assaults weren't being adults. i believe, and i know for a fact that this young lady made this false accusation because her roommate walked in the room and started calling her names and that's what kids do. sometimes when kids are pressed up backs up against the wall they don't make the best decisions and choices. from day one, and especially after that student wrote that statement, they knew what the truth was they just decided themselves that, no, this is -- we're not going to miss that opportunity. >> i think that's a good place to end. that's our time. thank you very much. >> thank you, man.

[applause] >> thank you for your questions. and thank you all for coming tonight. i'm the director of the wisconsin book festival and this is the first day that we've been able to celebrate the festival this about two full years, and the last fall celebration date was the 23rd, 2019. so, it's really wonderful to welcome you all back and especially for evenings like this, and important books like this and this is the 20th time that madison, wisconsin, the world has gathered to celebrate the with is-- wisconsin book festival and new for participating in that tonight. >> weekends on c-span2, are an intellectual feast. every saturday, american history tv documents america's stories and on sunday. book tv brings you the nonfiction books and authors and funding from c-pan c-span2

comes from this and more, wow. >> wow, speed reliability, value and choice, now more than ever it all starts with great internet. >> wow. >> wow, along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. ♪♪ >> c-span's new mobile app and stay up-to-date with live video coverage of the day's historical evers from the who us and senate floor. and the white house and supreme court oral arguments, these are live interactive programs, washington journal to hear your voices every day. c-span now has you covered. download the app for free today. with that i'm going to introduce our author and his interlocy.