Redeeming Justice With Jarrett Adams in Conversation with Scott Turow

Sometimes it’s not enough to just survive. Barely out of high school and lacking the means to pay for a lawyer, Jarrett Adams was appointed an inept public defender to confront a false accusation and a broken legal system rife with implicit bias and systemic racism. He was sentenced to twenty eight years in prison by an all-white jury for a crime he didn’t commit. His own future at stake, Adams became determined to not just survive but fight, for his freedom and the freedoms of others wrongfully convicted. Adams shares his inspiring story of hope and full-circle redemption.
Seventeen years old and facing nearly thirty years behind bars, Jarrett Adams sought to figure out the why behind his fate. Sustained by his mother and aunts who brought him back from the edge of despair through letters of prayer and encouragement, Adams became obsessed with our legal system in all its damaged glory. After discovering his constitutional rights to effective legal representation were violated, Adams solicited the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, an organization that exonerates the wrongfully convicted, and won his release after nearly ten years in prison.
Inspired by his experience to help others, Adams went on to earn his law degree before being hired by the New York Innocence Project, becoming the first exoneree ever hired by the nonprofit as a lawyer. In his first case, he argued before the same court that had convicted him a decade earlier - and won. In gripping prose, Adams draws on his own life and the cases of his clients to show the racist tactics used to convict young men of color, the unique challenges facing exonerees once released, and how the lack of equal representation in our courts is a failure not only of empathy but of our collective ability to uncover the truth.
Jarrett Adams used the injustice he endured as inspiration to become an advocate for the underserved. He earned his Juris Doctorate from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in May 2015 and started a public-interest law fellowship with Ann Claire Williams, judge for the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, the same court that reversed his conviction. Jarrett also clerked in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York with the late Honorable Deborah Batts. After working for the Innocence Project in New York, he launched the Law Office of Jarrett Adams, PLLC, in 2017, and now practices in both federal and state courts throughout the country.
ABOUT SCOTT TUROW
Scott Turow is a writer and attorney. He is the author of twelve bestselling works of fiction, including Presumed Innocent, the sequel Innocent, and most recently The Last Trial. He has also published two nonfiction books, including One L, about his experience as a law student. His books have been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, and have been adapted into movies and television projects. He has frequently contributed essays and op-ed pieces to publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. His latest novel will be published in 2022 by Grand Central Publishing.
In 1986, Mr. Turow became a partner in the Chicago office of Dentons LLC, an international law firm, concentrating on white collar criminal defense, while also devoting a substantial part of his time to pro bono matters. He retired from commercial practice in 2020. From 1978 until 1986, Mr. Turow worked as Assistant United Sates Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. He has served on a number of public bodies, including the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment to recommend reforms to Illinois’ death penalty system, and was the first Chair of Illinois’ Executive Ethics Commission which was created in 2004 to regulate executive branch employees in the Illinois State government. He is a former President of the Authors Guild, the nation’s largest membership organization of professional writers, and currently serves as an Emeritus Trustee of Amherst College and a Trustee of the Poetry Foundation.