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>> good evening everyone. welcome to the importantevent of the wisconsin book festival . i do want to say with respect to our speaker tonight, in another year this will be a house. you talk about this excellent book. my name is ken fraser and i'm the director of emeritus of the uw madison libraries. i currently serve on the board of the libraries. our friends are proud to be one of the partners for the book festival in tonight's presentation by jarrett adams.

we provide small grants to scholars who use universal libraries who do research and write books. we strive to improve all the libraries of the uw campus including ibthe great library and archives of the historical society which as you know is locatedon the campus . and we support the university's efforts to encourage students of color to consider careers in academic libraries and archives. if that sounds t interesting to you , then it might because you're here tonight. we invite you to join us. we the justice the infighting striving and injustice done to two young black men. the 1998. no men would eventually become the clients and who are still unjustly imprisoned 20 years later. 1998 is the same year jarrett

adams himself was convicted of rape at age 17. a crime he achieved was innocent of committing. jarrett adams writes with remarkable empathy for others these two men. and even for the individuals who did him great harm. his book could have been all about himself. his remarkable odyssey from being a teenager to nearly 30 years in prison and now leading a full practicing life in three states. mister adams book is a fast compelling read but his is a long story. he was released from prison in 2007 on bond d. not yet exonerated. and his is healing from that

incarceration with much longer. and his doctorate from cornell university in 2015 he now needs legal offices innew york , chicago, milwaukee and next year in los angeles. mister adams is also cofounder of life after justice , a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping exonerate. >> i knew it wouldn't come out. >> that is people who have been unjustly imprisoned. to help them rebuild their lives. please join me in welcoming jarrett adams to the podium. [applause] >> ..

i hope you guys are expecting a scholar type of lecture because that's not me. that's how i wrote the book and i won't take over because my friend steve is ready to go with questions. >> welcome, thank you for coming. my name is stephenen wright, associate clinical professor at the university of law school and former director of the project. it is my honor to be with gerrit today but i'm mindful as i read his story in 2020 alone, 121 exonerations in the united states. 1700 years of people sacrifice

to the criminal justice system. in 2019, that was about 143 individuals. 50% of those cases involve some type of statete misconduct whetr it was police or prosecutors but also mindful and i'm sure many of you saw national reports wisconsin incarcerated black men at a higher rate than any other state. 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 about 50% of the states population, will represent 42% of the population of individuals incarcerated. garrett story is extraordinary but unfortunately very common. i guess i'll start their, jarrett has rightly received

tension, he featured on nbc news, cnn and every major national paper so i'm wondering, why write the book? what you have to share? >> there's a long answer behind it but i'll shorten it for the psaki of tonight. i get my law degree, a graduate and i recall going home, you get a paper degree at the graduation. i remember when the diploma came, i remember running to my r mother's house to give it to her and she started to cry. id said i thought we were done crying so she said i'm crying because i know you aren't going to go off and do law and forget about what it's like to be

isolated on the island in the courtroom with no help. i know you're going to practice law and do something to paper things forward and help people so i run off with this law degree an early i realized i wasn't going to save every black hero with one law degree so i started steaming water out of flushing so i had to come up with something different. i was reading books and continue to read books. as cool as a cucumber but i'm a nerd. [laughter] i read cooking books, i started to read different books the innocent man and what i didn't want to do, i didn't want the story to be misconstrued, that's another wrongful eviction book so what i did, i spent as much

time with my remaining partner still alive and for the first time i learned in history who i was and it was important to write the book because how often does the news article portray young black men as if they were born at the scene of accusation? no history, no nothing, just a picture you get these stigmas in historical depictions of what black boys and men are criminalized. i wrote the book from the perspective of look at the rest of the community. the biggest victim in the story is the community and here is why. the community like the one in milwaukee is feeding the criminal justice system and in turn criminal justice system and in other cities and the men at

the house for decades and more. i started to write, it was a call of action because we are the calvary so is a call to action to say how do we take this book to the sympathy and empathy does it mean to get the attention of folks who have the power to make these changes? that article that came out, i wrote the book, i started writing the book two years ago, it's one of the first things in my book because i met these men grew up there so i said okay, let me write this, number one, anybody could look at this site it's got awful. then let me take you to the communities and show you where

they come from. it's a call to action, i said this before when i heard my accomplishments, we live in the offices, let me impress upon you the importance because that's how you get the safety and security in our country. you don't get there by walking everyone up and proving that by the numbers. we'll get into more about wrongful conviction but one thing that impressed me about the power of the emotion in the book. you will explain but not upon the solitary, i think one was 360 days straight. >> 360 days and then 300 days a second time.

>> so how do you convey that, being alone in that space, not only wrongfully convicted but then they find out you help people and they want to punish you for that. >> that's what it was about so to say what it was like compare, will lock you up in a closet for days at a time unless somebody tells on you and you see what happens so it's not okay to do it to a pet and how is it okay to do it to a human being at any capacity? the thing about the prison system, the time i was incarcerated, they open up a program, i used the baseball theme, you build it, they will come so when they built that

prison, they did the same things that brought us here right now, they did off of fear. jeffrey dahmer was killed in prison and they took it and arranged to get a budget to both the present and they did out of fear the same they got the criminal law that takes people out and sent people to prison, same thing. when i started to realize, i became a tutor in the prison system so i had to leave ignorance of believing they were just making choices, commit crime and come back but that wasn't thees case. i also realized, there's a difference between reading and understanding what you read.

pleading guilty, they just simply didn't understand stuff like that. i'll give you one in particular, there was a call, manufacturing a weapon and you would get especially for black men because they would take the canteen, rip off the tape to get close shave because why? blackman's hair curls up and you get ingrown hairs so they were pleading guilty to the infarction of manufacturing a weapon though i started to tell them, stop pleading guilty to that. if there was no intent, you are saving with it so i started and all of a sudden i'm getting snatched, they are accusing me with stuff that made no sense. the funny thing is, i'm thankful

we see this, keeping them from the wisconsin innocent project, he was workingnn on the case for years, all this stuff was going on, i was showing him the stuff so they could see what was going on. essentially, people stopped pleading guilty to these infractions and we started this. they couldn't fill up the space in the segregationon unit so who does wisconsin have a problem with? somebody going to happen in real time in these institutions. >> the book is two parts, the first half discusses your

experience in the victim of the criminal justice system, it's your journey to become an advocate in the system, i don't know where to begin talking about what you suffered but criminal justice part. you have gone to a party despite witnesses and a litany of evidence showing you are not guilty, you are falsely accused. the accuser has problems that several say this doesn't say credible to me. let's start, the police were at your door saying come visit us. you don't know what's going on in your 17.

you decide not to go with your mom so you go there and think that telling the truth about what happens would be the solution and they would understand and he would go home. [laughter] >> that's exactly what i thought. another reason i started the book, how i was raised because it lets you understand how easy it is and can happen i mentioned my grandmother and grandfather and i mentioned them a lot and the reason is because there's a lot of us, a lot of family. no one would base anything like this, we don't goac to jail or anything, from cleveland mississippi, when you will talked about it, you would think she's 7-foot tall.

she just didn't play. police and physical were called to the house because there was never a problem so respect authority, you do what you're supposed to, you tell the truth and facts how we are taught. we were never told black kids shouldn't tell more than that. when i saw them at my door, i graduated high school, summer break and kind of saw it that summer because we are trying to hold on and we knew it was everywherend. we were just partying and hanging out, we knew it would come to anmi end. toward the end of the summer, buying groceries and making a little bit of extra money and stuff, when i get home, i'm graduate now so i'm at home and my parents are gone, it's like robbery homicide so i called

because i knew they had done wrong jerry adams. i called and they caught me. they said come on down, i've never been arrested before, just come on down and you are cleared up. there's about 4:00, 5:00 and they said how old are you? is at 17 so just come on down, kit, just get it over with. the entire interview i remember being called kid, boy, fun, cute, boy, son. we were the three black men from chicago, just that fast. i wrote this book so it's a tutorial, i remember every word from tupac cd when i was in the police station, they knew i had the right to walk out of the, i

didn't know i could simply say i want a lawyer and things could be over. that was my belief. >> when one police officer, the chicago police department someone from wisconsin down there, you brought this up in the book, the interrogating officer didn't come with an open mind, it was a foregone conclusion once he stepped into the room. what time did you know that when did you move from optimism of telling the truth and standing up would not get you out of

this? >> and all craziness as i look back at it now, they didn't arrest me right then, they let me out of the police station but now i know what they were doing, they knew all three of us because of where we were, they knew all three of us, they interviewed the white guy first, we went up to this standard, i was there playing video w games, they took a statement from, this was an accusation, it was a three-page statement written by the men would ultimately save their life so they were trying to figure out kid is saying one of them stayed and then got his friends and they were downstairs so when they were talking to me, the conversation was what did

your friend do? so you see how easily someone trying to save themselves not knowing what's right, it could have thrown the case upside down so i leave out i wasn't arrested and as a 17-year-old kid, i went to the council about my friends who were also 17 in there like to be arrested, just poking around, you tell them to truth, you areli good. boil boy. it was shocking when a caravan of police showed up a week and a half later because what they did, they took the interview and use my interview to sit there

case so this caravan of police show up, i will never forget the embarrassment, shock and dismay on my families face and me my mom, my mother was already mad, saw white boy. [laughter] i was like mom, come on. as naïve as this may sound, i just never for a second thought that things wouldn't be okay. was extraordinary as when you get to wisconsin, there are perhaps signs of hope you go through a preliminary hearing, the judge of the hearing set this is a really bad case. i will never forget his name, he

heard, this is something i want to make sure is hurt, you have to hear the facts of the case, you know what f the facts of the case are? is a police report. you know what i'm saying? sometimes become people become confused. the facts are on the police report so the police report was written, i thought it was a description, that's how things work, you are supposed to go up a flight of stairs, way that someone without using a gun or threat or anything, no conversation and flee the building meanwhile they had witnesses statement. i am in dismay that -- essentially because i didn't know the allegation, it was

based on the testimony and i don't see it but i let the trial judge handle it and that was the worst mistake ever because he had the power to do it but not only that, it is very rare to give up a judge that has not been a prosecutor or from high litigation, they have no understanding not everybody in front of you is guilty of what they are accused of so the judge had the opportunity bute i understand it. going to a judge, you could tell pierre shifted, i can't answer at the time like word these

people live? asian people who appear? if you are of color, so i said how do you get porn people in? whenever the term is. how do you get these people and not one person of color? so you know, it's just the luck of the draw. okay so all right, someone going through it, that is in the book, that's what it is. what you don't understand, that's most of the people who go through the system, i realized how much of a kid i was going through this. i thought i knew it all, ready to be on my own, all of us.

i had no idea what they were talking about and the most important forks in the road came when there was a mistrial and then a retrial me and my coat defendant demetri realized our remaining codependent with hiring an attorney, his attorney filed a motion to trial again. we get to court and the lawyer is like let's talk in the hall, i didn't know that but i know now. newco somewhere and what the conversation is, you know it's not going to be good. you get into the hall and the lawyer is like look, they filed a motion, we want to go ahead

and proceed because you saw what happened in the first trial so we were tried twice. the first trial was a mistrial because again, the police report wasn't testified to so the state had the charge at the end of the trial i requested a mistrial declared. >> they say i know i can't win. >> that's essentially what he did. we were retried again in order not to talk to each other. like the fools we were, we talked to each other so we get back up to the second trial and they asked me to come out to the hall, i was 18 years old. even as an 18-year-old, i knew this did not make any sense. you're saying break up a three?

for what? is calling the case because he is a attorney, who is think the case was closed, he wanted to get it over with but i knew this. the lawyer was like look, you saw what happened in the first trial, i think it should be over with, you should go back to school, your good kids and all of this. butow it didn't make sense i'm looking at him and my mother my mother at this time, it's like wrinkles of the english on her forehead work tattooed there. i knew this guy wasn't making any sense about his trial strategy but i knew i put her through this. i didn't commit it but i told her i was going to a friend house, i was responsible for this, i knew if i could get it

over with, get my life back together, back and forth from chicago, i proceeded to go on my remaining coat defendant, we went to trial and impeached the witnesses, the witnesses had inconsistencies, didn't call. there trial strategy was no defense strategy. i have never heard of that but 17 or 188 i said no defense, thy can't prove their case. that's their silent defense. there's no defense attorney for assault ever-growing and to a trial like that.go >> your case is sort of a study in the role that many concise so when you are arrested, you are one of three innocent men, two of you get an attorney and one of you gets a private attorney

and in the first case the stoop to state attorneys let the private attorneys do the work. >> yes, they would literally signal, while the other attorney did the questioning promote the meetings and it was like our attorneys didn't even give an opening because the paid attorney at then time so scary knowing what authority was saying let's stop this, this isn't right but i believe, i know the prosecutor knew that his evidence had nothing to do the allegation of a crime the evidence was a historical

depiction of young blackck men with a white accuser so he was going to get this done on this representation so it was easy for them to press forward with that, we were divided and conquered at that w time i'll never forget, part of the reason it's been exhausting but i've never took a timeout because my mother and aunt one take one and i never forgot looking at turning around looking at my mother in the courtroom and i remember how something her eyes were into her head and she looked like my grandmother in the middle of this so i said what is going on? you know you didn't do this,

this isn't about the truth for you. it was about the truth, there would be a lot of men not hung in the 60s down in the south so you asked me when i realized it wasn't look good, that's when i realized it wasn't looking good so there is the to state appointed attorneys, where the prosecutor at the end basically said i'm not going to win and you are allowed to be retried. the attorney figured out he wants to appeal, your codependence case, your attorneys don't figure that out, they knew and didn't do anything. >> they knew the decisions without telling us, so.

>> so you go to a second trial and go on but this time because your friend is going through an appeal, you and your other codependent demetri, both of you had the same attorney as before, the same stelar counsel who just sat there. there was no reason they shouldn't have joined. the appeal should have been mistrial with prejudice, that would mean they can't retry us so it was directly at the heart of what the issue was so for them to nots join in was inexcusable w.

>> but i read it as a professor, it seems like there's one violation after another. he made itot back, not all of te evidence, you know you are subject to it, they specifically exclude people who come up to be on the jury but one thing i wasn't particularly surprised by but i was surprised it didn't even put a lightbulb over the attorneys head, the argument of the state beginning with the police and the prosecutor is why would this young woman sleep with three black men? why would she accused three black men? we said that explicitly. >> the three black men from chicago throughout the trial,

that's all we saw. the lightal here, that's how it was going on at the trial and that is the thing that was said. he was screaming at like this is a race-based trial, you should stop this. but on top of that, i can't go past this without saying the state public defense system in wisconsin isn't broken, it was never working.. you have a system state public is overwhelmed so what is the safety guide? create a firms where you can affirm, experienced attorneys and pay a decent wage, we're not talking $500 an hour or anything but right now the state pay is

not incentivizing good representation, it's pushing it away. people. with good morals aren't taking it because of the state peso $35 an hour, that's good for someoo attorneys can't generate their own business and stuff but it's not going to get you constitutionally effective representation so you think about this, if you want to make sure we got it right, why aren't the scales level for public defense? doing civil suit to sue the state to get the funding to represent its own citizens of the state, i don't want to come across as being a brilliant signed major but i've lived and looked and washed and i am telling you, we could fix this

but people aren't eager to fix it. the pupil benefiting from prison system and the java creates are achieving not to do what is right to save the lives of folks folks are innocent. >> becoming of an in your book, the state has police to do investigation.o part of the reason we were able to vindicate yourself is the witnesses at the party not know and talk to and have investigators you could have sent and the police have talked to them but they haven't handed them over. >> they knew what happened the next night but this was in so

many words, they have the fixings for what has historically worked, i cannot use that word enough, historical, historical, historical. we can't block out history be afraid to hurt feelings because the only way you fix it is how the road was built and that is what kept, i kept saying to myself from the first time this took place all the way up until the innocence project walked me out in 2007, i just kept saying they'll get this right. you're talking a decade now it goes back so i remember an investigator saying something about a budget.

what you just said was important because we can't discount that. when they say state voices so and so, that's exactly what they mean. you name it, they're coming together so my public defender, even if he wanted to get an investigator, there would have to be a process going through the court, asking for a budget and not conducive to get it right. we want to get it right? if we don't want to get it right the newco don't give the resources they need to hire more, you don't have thehe systm have the opportunity to pay attorneys who know what they are doing to provide representation so it is the desire in terms of

the issues in the book. >> i'm going to move on to the experience once you are convicted but one thing but what struck me was at sentencing, the judge said something like i'm going to give you 20 skiers but i don't like your attitudes are going to give you 28. >> that was real. when ihe knew that it was in and found guilty, no witnesses, i knew when i mother -- i just knew what was going on. i had couldn't have my auntie and mother sat in the courtroom and hear me be picked it as someone ever than who they

raised so i stood up and i said i want to apologize to everyone in here. my mom and everyone in this room but i'm not going to apologize for rate that never happened, it's not true and i hope the truth is heard. when i came back in after sentencing, she told me exactly what you said, she gave me eight more additional years because she said i wasn't remorseful. i don't know remorseful was there but apparently she was able to do so but let me say, when she tried to punish me, the trajectory of my life, i went to the maximum. month no consideration, demetri stayed up there, he went to a meeting so i'm filled up with

this older white dude who had been there aa long time i remember it was him who gave me a wake-up call, there is an incident where everyone was lockdown, i'm on the phone with my mom and i'm trying my best, chicago public school education trying to do my best to explain, they kept saying how to someone never arrested get years in prison? forget that, how does someone use the presence of three black boys to get to this? i can't answer these questions, i'm still a baby, i can't answer these questions. they said let me talk to you and he was like i don't understand what you are doing, you're playing basketball chest and

office stuff, you're in the basketball and chess club? let me read your paperwork so you read it and mentioned the witness who came up, there for almost the entire thing, whose testimony never got there. >> never got there and wrote a statement so he had like a three sentence note in my paperwork i never paid attention to so that's when i started to write one who is representing him. it later came out this statement and ie think was when the statement came out, the prosecution almost immediately dismissed it, the remaining codefendant.

>> this was the person with the paid attorney because you wrote saying statement, they were able to figure that out and when the paid investigator product to the attention of the court and the prosecutor, the prosecutor's work done, you can go so the fact that three of you were charged, your attorney is at home, your codefendant was serving 20? >> twenty years. >> i thought that evidence was strong enough to garner dismissal and it would get demetri a new trial. the prosecutor said welll, the strategy didn't include witnesses, that's not our problem and they essentially made us go, we appealed seven years more and there's no doubt,

i have started to write this, i pointed out, it's an opportunity to release. >> i pointed out the issues, the innocence project drafted -- there were two issues. first it was the elements, it was just crazy how you get maxed out but the second thing was the council. there's no doubt in my mind that had it not been for the name of the innocence project, i would still be in there. i note this based on the work we are doing now in the state of wisconsin, it's too easy for folks sitting in their seat to just say no and that's it without even a hearing but the

name gets the attention, the name and what happened with my codefendant created the perfect storm but let me tell you more. i have the innocence project throughout, he's in a different prison so we couldn't communicate so he missed a deadline for this so i go through my commissions and reverse. this is in the interest of justice. the same judge, it is clear the court didn't have all of the evidence so we overturn the conviction of demetri. he came on three months after i did so the attorney general, the

prosecutor not elevated to the attorney general's office appealed the case to the court and the court reinstated the conviction of demetri and said it was because he missed the deadline never said anything about innocence, guilt or and on about, just simply said he missed the deadline the sentencing court, circuit court judge did not have the authority, the interest of judgment, i don't know what it is but the court was so got to ask yourself, why are we giving these opinions? why are there so many barriers? let me impress upon you the people losing their so we are

back at the same thing as before the conversation of race and i am a lawyer, not a scholar and until we address this for real and start to address inequality, we won't get past this at all. so someone on that bench or someone's on that bench in the courtti could solve this for wht it was, they would have done with the marshall court said. sometimes you just got to do what isou right and let the law catch up and it speaks volumes. we can't keep around when it is, we just haveng to keep changing the shifts so it's important people use this book to mobilize how you get it done which is this. policing power. every power criminal court to be

a pocket who hold them accountable. i have played abracadabra, i'll be honest but i don't do it now. it's important who we are electing, we have to change the people making decisions because those decisions are keeping them, i'm on this motion for belief that there aren't other innocent people in the system, there aren't -- the nation's capitol blocking locking up black men, come on. this is like a car wash, you know there are mistakes made so now it comese down to the people aren't going to do it, hardly replace them because they are the oppressors or equality and

justice, we need to move forward. >> i think we have about ten minutes. there's a microphone over here. [inaudible] >> that's how you know you did a great job. [laughter] >> you talked a lot about your experience going through but talk about, i want people to know about your license and your passion for helping other men who haven't been able. >> first, i'm not here because i did all on my own. i had a strong family structure like my mom and aunt and people in the community who reached out and extended apologies in their hands. i had a former assistant state

attorney, mike took me under his wing when i got to chicago. i continue to build on that relationship and in the innocence project. the council at milwaukee because i wanted that presence, not just the presence but i wanted to try to start something that would tackle that article. i say this. i never had an id in wisconsin but i got sweat equity and citizenship so i'm not proud of where i came out, to be known for she's and black men, come on. that can't be what it is so we have to go from having a conversation to implement and things and changes within so that's why i love the presence here because let us like it from

those incarcerated, people incarcerated when i was incarcerated and they are still there. so we aren't going back to the state of wisconsin, weg are dog a good job. you will see in the book, 50 or 60% of the people incarcerated in wisconsin have had experience in the system before so another example, a car company, imagine the car company had 60% of the cars come back to the production line after two or three years off the production line. congress would have a national debate trying to set shut the car company down because of the risk to the community so they are not reintegrated into society, they are not coming back in a couple of years.

the scariest thing i saw was watching somebody go home in the winter and come back in the spring so how do we find the value and time to shut down the corporations when it's product keeps coming back no one wants the conversation about reintegrating folks back into the immunity. given the community resources it needs. the only way to fix it is to empower the community and get the resources it needs to fix what's there. think about what you use every day at home, a tv or whatever it is, if someone breaks into your home and you use it all the time, what it comes down to is do you have the resources and will? do you have tape or syrup? i used to syrup one day, you

never know. [laughter] so you look at it and you say to yourself, that's how we finish this. we built communities as strong as we can because they have to deal with the problems in their communities and recant do that if we continue with political talk and everybody wants to cram pain and have criminal justice reform and send you to the office. >> we have a question over here. >> the underlying reality, was it that there really was an assault and they got the three wrong guys were perpetrated or the supposed to victim was lying about the whole thing? did you ever findd out? >> you didn't read the book. >> hoping to be inspired. >> you've got to read the book because here's the thing.

with all respect and sincerity, that's not a one-man answer, you've got to read the book. that's what you have to do, it was a false accusation and it was an embarrassing a counter, you've got to read the book. >> i will read the book. since you said false accusation, the question i have is, is that sense of justice the person who made the false accusation, did she just walk off and live her life? >> the unfortunate part is this. this isn't just my case, this is with all cases that i know of, when someone is strong as a witness, there are no repercussions.ta they can tell you all they want to tell yourc and stuff but part of the reason is, they prosecute people line, they run the risk of people, all the nonsense but i will say this.

we were kids and adults weren't being adults. i know the young lady made the false accusation because a room walked in and started calling her names. that's what kids do. sometimes when kids are pressed up with their backs against the wall, they don't make the best decisions or choices but from day one, especially after the student made that statement, they knew the truth. they just decided themselves we are not going to miss this opportunity. >> i think that is a good place to and from about our time. thank you very much. [applause] >> think every questions, thank you for coming tonight. i'm the director of the book festival. this is the first day we been

able to celebrate the festival two full years. last fall celebration date was the 23rd, 2019 so it's wonderful to welcome you all back especially for evening like this, and porn looks like this and it the 20th time madison wisconsin, the world has gathered to celebrate wisconsin book festival so thank you for participating tonight. ♪♪ >> washington on filter, c-span in your pocket. download c-span now today. ♪♪ >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. apparel, books, home decor, accessories, something for every c-span fan. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. ♪♪