Redeeming Justice is a testament to both the gross inequities plaguing our justice system and the determination that brought Jarrett Adams’ life full circle, from defendant to lawyer. Adams was barely 18 when an all-white judge and jury sentenced him to 28 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. That was the beginning of Adams’ battle to prove his innocence in a judicial system that is not only racist but also inherently biased against the poor. Adams recounts his years of incarceration with a disproportionate number of fellow Black men, how he came to study the law, his eventual exoneration, and the years that followed when he struggled to acclimate to “normal” life. But he persisted in reaching his goal and, against all odds, became a lawyer for the Wisconsin Innocence Project. Evoking emotions ranging from outrage and shock to hope and vicarious pride, Redeeming Justice is a real-life phoenix-rising story you won’t want to miss. —Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor
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Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System
Attorney Adams recounts his case of racist-driven injustice, a decade of hard time, and the long road to a new life. This is a story about being wrongly accused of a crime because the alleged perpetrator was Black. In 1998, the author, then 18, was convicted of rape. Being Black and on trial was one strike, and then there were two more: Adams believed the truth would prevail (sadly, not the case), and his court-appointed lawyer got paid by the number of cases he closed, thus assuring little digging in the case. The author was sentenced to 28 years behind bars, going to some of the harshest prisons in the country, where he spent years in solitary confinement. Adams brings to his story flinch-making detail, evoking a fever dream of fear and confusion. In his cast of prison characters, there are both those who dehumanize and the ones who help you make it through. For his safety and sanity, Adams found work in the prison legal library, and in something straight out of Shawshank Redemption, he became the in-house legal adviser to those who were unjustly incarcerated, given poor legal counsel, and written up with phony disciplinary tickets. It is a remarkable tale of chance, circumstance, mind-boggling dedication, racism, survival, faith (“I go first because I look for any reason to get out of my cell. Then I realize I’m going to church because I feel emotionally and physically safe”), and admirable forbearance. There is rarely a minute when readers will not want to know what comes next, from prison to lawyering and fighting for not aspirational but equal justice, to how Adams handles each instance of anger, anxiety, guilt, and willpower in and out of prison. A consuming tale of a broken legal system, its trail of ruin, and the fortitude needed to overcome its scarring.
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