Speaker 1: Hold up every day.
Speaker 2: Up Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1: You don't finish for y'all done?
Speaker 3: Yep, it's the world's most dangerous morning show, The Breakfast Club. Charlamagna, God,
Speaker 3: just hilarious, DJ Envy, justin, DJ n Bey on here today,
Speaker 3: but ll Coolbay Law and Lerossa is and we're talking
Speaker 3: to a very special brother man.
Speaker 1: His name is Jared Adams.
Speaker 3: Okay, he's got a book out called Redeeming Justice, but
Speaker 3: he is a civil rights attorney and justice reform advocate
Speaker 3: with an amazing story.
Speaker 1: Good morning, my brother.
Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning. Thank you both for having me
Speaker 2: on here.
Speaker 4: Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3: Absolutely you know you were You were wrongfully convicted and
Speaker 3: spent ten years in prison for a crime you didn't commit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you got seventeen I.
Speaker 2: Believe right, seventeen years old.
Speaker 1: Seventeen but you went on to become an attorney yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not the first to do it, but seventeen years old,
Speaker 2: wrongfully convicted, my conviction being over reversed, reversed after almost
Speaker 2: ten years with the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project.
Speaker 2: And then it was what I saw inside the prison
Speaker 2: that really at me on the journey that I'm on
Speaker 2: right now. So when I get to this maximum security prison,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm one of the youngest you know, inmates
Speaker 2: who's walking around this prison. By the time I'm on
Speaker 2: my way out, you know, of this prison, I'm looking
Speaker 2: at mainly eighty ninety percent of the prison, it's seventeen
Speaker 2: eighteen year old men of color. So literally the prison
Speaker 2: boom that we talk about right now, that was when
Speaker 2: I was doing my time, and it was just it
Speaker 2: was a sight to see. So when I left for
Speaker 2: out of those doors, I told myself, not only was
Speaker 2: I not gonna go back, but I'm gonna try to
Speaker 2: do something to keep people from going there and pull
Speaker 2: out as many brothers and sisters. Now increasingly that I'm
Speaker 2: doing as I can.
Speaker 3: No, I was thinking, man, when you walk into a
Speaker 3: courtroom now as a lawyer, what part of that teenage
Speaker 3: version of you is still present in your mind?
Speaker 2: The part of it well is too. It's too you know.
Speaker 2: I would say, it's two spirits. When I go in there.
Speaker 2: Number One, I thank God that I'm able to walk
Speaker 2: in there now know a champion of justice, you know,
Speaker 2: being able to pull people out. But then also when
Speaker 2: I go in there, there's a bit of you know,
Speaker 2: y'all try to try to murk me. You tried to
Speaker 2: take me out, you know what I mean. So I'm
Speaker 2: walking through swinging arms like George Jefferson and this boy,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, like like legitly. So there's
Speaker 2: a there's a there's a moment of being proud. There's
Speaker 2: definitely being humble. But it's a reminder that man, look,
Speaker 2: this is all I fight. You understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: There there are more families affected now by our system,
Speaker 2: and we got to find a way to link arms
Speaker 2: and create a human chain.
Speaker 4: How do you identify like what clients you choose to
Speaker 4: take on.
Speaker 2: Well, it's an interesting question because for a long time, Lauren,
Speaker 2: I was a sucker for all my son and.
Speaker 4: You know my mom yeh see, anybody behind bars is tough.
Speaker 2: It is. But then also like my going through my journey,
Speaker 2: I went through it with my mama, my mom, a
Speaker 2: single black mother. I go through it with her and
Speaker 2: we became tighter. And so once I got my law degree,
Speaker 2: and it's to help answer the question to you know
Speaker 2: how you gotta wait in the mail for the law
Speaker 2: degree to actually get to the house. So when you
Speaker 2: get to the house. My mama tell me I come
Speaker 2: over there, and I thought, I want her to keep it.
Speaker 2: And so she started crying and I say, well, we
Speaker 2: ain't crying no more, man were doing good. She said, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm not crying because I'm sad. I'm crying because I
Speaker 2: know you just hang onna go try to make money.
Speaker 2: You're gonna realize that there are other black mails with
Speaker 2: single parents and they gonna need your help, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna help them. Right. So, for a long time I
Speaker 2: was a sucker for that story. And then I get
Speaker 2: down deep in these cases and realize that it wasn't
Speaker 2: exactly what it was. But it never disturbed me from
Speaker 2: from like perfecting the process of the intake unit that
Speaker 2: we have right now. Right I have an organization called
Speaker 2: Life After Justice where we review these cases and we
Speaker 2: try to select these cases on the cases that can
Speaker 2: do a couple of different things. Right. We always want
Speaker 2: to see people get out, but also if we can
Speaker 2: get out and make a change legislatively or or some
Speaker 2: rule that would prevent those are the cases that we
Speaker 2: highlight and we want to put at the top of
Speaker 2: the list.
Speaker 4: I saw you working on d Bence Brother's case. Yes, right,
Speaker 4: so I know that there's no decision at this point.
Speaker 2: Where it is one, okay, they granted the decision in
Speaker 2: the Vince case that she saw mat if you know it,
Speaker 2: don't know. Two white brothers from Wisconsin were wrongfully convicted
Speaker 2: and spent twenty seven years in prison for the rape
Speaker 2: and the murder and the kidnapping of a bar you
Speaker 2: know bartender. Right. They ended up doing DNA testing exhuming
Speaker 2: the body of the person who actually did it and
Speaker 2: was a serial rapist, and they cleared these men. But
Speaker 2: when they came home, they came home past the age
Speaker 2: of retirement. And literally there's a statute in Wisconsin that
Speaker 2: no matter how many years you've spent in prison, the
Speaker 2: maximum you will get is twenty five thousand dollars. Right,
Speaker 2: so you have to petition the legislators and make an
Speaker 2: argument and say, look, this is why they deserve more money.
Speaker 2: They did not make a decision up until like a
Speaker 2: month ago, about three weeks ago, and they agreed to
Speaker 2: pay these men and a mis million dollars plus the
Speaker 2: twenty five thousand, and it's something that they desperately needed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's like, that's amazing. But when you get
Speaker 4: involved in these cases like this, right, even though you
Speaker 4: know that there's a wrong because of the way the
Speaker 4: system is set up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do.
Speaker 4: You kind of save yourself from like if there is
Speaker 4: disappointment at the end, because you know, yeah, it's fifty.
Speaker 2: It's continued therapy. Like I still go to therapy right
Speaker 2: now to this day, you know, because I have to
Speaker 2: balance my emotions no matter what the tentacles of when
Speaker 2: you come in contact with this system that we have
Speaker 2: in the United States, the tentacles of that contact will
Speaker 2: always reach you through life. And the only way you
Speaker 2: can maintain that balance is with constant therapy. And so
Speaker 2: I encourage therapy. I do it myself because there are
Speaker 2: there are we take it on the chin a lot, Lauren,
Speaker 2: And so we have to find a way to continue
Speaker 2: to get up off the mat. And we who are
Speaker 2: off the mat need to find a way to keep
Speaker 2: extending our palm and pulling people up with us.
Speaker 4: And that was a historic amount that they were awarding Wisconsant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was. It was. It was
Speaker 2: an amount where it's been met before, but like only twice, okay, right,
Speaker 2: So don't they don't necessarily give it out, and right
Speaker 2: now there's a bill on the floor right now to
Speaker 2: make it, you know, a law that you will get
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars a year not having to go through
Speaker 2: what they went through and hold on and wait and hope.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I agree with you on therapy.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a big proponent of therapy myself, man,
Speaker 3: And I always say, you know, heal people, Healed people
Speaker 3: will help heal people.
Speaker 2: No doubt.
Speaker 1: Hurt people will continue to hurt.
Speaker 2: Hurt people absolutely. And my journey from listen, my journey
Speaker 2: through mental health wasn't easy. Man. I thought I was
Speaker 2: going to a damn fish fry. My mom and Aunties
Speaker 2: was like, man, baby, look we need you to like
Speaker 2: you're going to see the lady. Yeah, we need you
Speaker 2: let it out, you know. And I think that in
Speaker 2: our community, we are we are we rejected because we
Speaker 2: think it's a sign of weakness, because you're like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: they's crazy he going to see this and going to
Speaker 2: see that. But for me, I was on autopilot when
Speaker 2: I got out because all of my guys, man, it
Speaker 2: wasn't turning up no more. They had kids, they had careers,
Speaker 2: So I thought I could work twenty four hours a
Speaker 2: day to catch up for almost a decade that was
Speaker 2: taken and it wasn't mentally healthy for me. So going
Speaker 2: through that, I'm understanding now that the real how I
Speaker 2: look at this when it comes to my mental health
Speaker 2: is these are moments of decompression and sometimes, man, you
Speaker 2: have to go and decompress so that way you can
Speaker 2: have the right state of mind to respond to all
Speaker 2: the stresses that the world has to offer each and
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 3: I gotta get you on, you know, you know, I
Speaker 3: do the mental Wealth Explorer, I do.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: Shaka was telling me about that. He was like, man,
Speaker 2: make sure you talk about that so you.
Speaker 3: Can get on with that problem that we're going next year.
Speaker 3: We're gonna do I want to do three or four
Speaker 3: cities next year. So okay, I definitely need you there.
Speaker 3: But you got a memoir Redeeming Justice, right, and the
Speaker 3: subtitle is from Defendant to Defender? Yes, what was the
Speaker 3: hardest chapter to write? Emotionally? And what did you learn
Speaker 3: about yourself when you was putting your story on paper?
Speaker 2: So it took me three years to write the book.
Speaker 2: And part of the reason why it took me those
Speaker 2: three years is because I wanted to read all of
Speaker 2: the books of people with stories of wrong for conviction
Speaker 2: because I wanted it to be honestly, I wanted it
Speaker 2: to be and I wanted to be a salute to
Speaker 2: my mom and my aunts. Man, they didn't have to
Speaker 2: hold me down like that, but they did. So when
Speaker 2: I write it, and when you look at the book,
Speaker 2: you think it's a wrong for Conviction book, But if
Speaker 2: you look at the first opening, it's a dedication to
Speaker 2: my aunts who sugar, Honey and pizzas looking from Chicago dough.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. That's the big things, right,
Speaker 2: And so I sent the shout out to them, because man,
Speaker 2: they did stuff like keep me alive when I wanted
Speaker 2: to die, and that boy, I would get a letter
Speaker 2: with a verse every day from one of them, because
Speaker 2: they told me, baby, look, we're gonna acknowledge that they've
Speaker 2: incarcerated Joe body, but we will never let them imprison
Speaker 2: your mind. And so I wrote this story from a
Speaker 2: perspective of not just what the person goes through while
Speaker 2: they're in prison, what does the family go through Because
Speaker 2: my mama went from litis. My mother was a big
Speaker 2: hat wearing peppermint passing Front Road Church. But when I
Speaker 2: went through this, she got tired of answering the question
Speaker 2: in Charlemagne, what happened to Jared? Where he at? You
Speaker 2: know what I mean? It became hard for her, and
Speaker 2: so I wanted to send a shout out to her
Speaker 2: and then also continue to pay this about what I'm
Speaker 2: doing in life right now.
Speaker 4: When you talk about like your mom and your aunt
Speaker 4: right and you said that, they was like, Yo, you
Speaker 4: gotta go see the lady when you're helping, because I mean,
Speaker 4: you get people the justice that they deserve, right, but
Speaker 4: a lot of times they don't identify that they have
Speaker 4: issues that they need to deal with. So now you're
Speaker 4: that person in their life when you're doing that. Like
Speaker 4: how easy or how hard is it to tell somebody, hey,
Speaker 4: you need to go get some help, Like we're going
Speaker 4: to figure out the job and to stay, but you
Speaker 4: need to go get some help because you're trying to
Speaker 4: live your life.
Speaker 2: It's a difficult conversation. But I can use a story
Speaker 2: that I just had. So I got a client in Chicago,
Speaker 2: guy by the name of Shaquille Williams. He was wrongfully
Speaker 2: arrested for a murder that they knew he didn't commit.
Speaker 2: So we are going through the suit and one of
Speaker 2: the toughest things about a civil suit is a deposition
Speaker 2: because you get you get Pepper with questions, and so
Speaker 2: he's being asked these questions that are emotionally triggering to
Speaker 2: him where you know, he lost his mom while he
Speaker 2: was locked up. He now has a wife, and I
Speaker 2: have to explain to him and encourage him that you
Speaker 2: have to keep going to therapy because there are situations
Speaker 2: where when someone gets out of a place, like a
Speaker 2: system like we have, you have to learn how to
Speaker 2: not treat your wife like your selling and that's a
Speaker 2: difficult thing to do, and you should never want to
Speaker 2: do it alone. So what I try to do is
Speaker 2: live my life and say look what I've done, what
Speaker 2: I've done to make it more easier for guys to
Speaker 2: be receptive. These are some hard dudes who think that
Speaker 2: you know, they can't show a sign of weakness. So
Speaker 2: if I'm telling them that I have went through and
Speaker 2: did this time and I don't walked the same hard
Speaker 2: tears you have, but I still revert back to therapy
Speaker 2: because it has helped me tie my shoes in a
Speaker 2: race that is life.
Speaker 3: Ooh ooh, I've heard you say the criminal justice system
Speaker 3: is rigged, yeah, and that justice is for sale. So
Speaker 3: when you look at the current system, what are the
Speaker 3: top two or three pressure points that most clearly show
Speaker 3: you how like money and race still determine these outcomes.
Speaker 2: Look at what we got going on right now, man, Like,
Speaker 2: just look at what we what we got we have.
Speaker 2: We have a system that it depends on who you
Speaker 2: know and what you have right, and it will determine
Speaker 2: your result. We are seeing right now our justice department,
Speaker 2: you know, being used in such a way that is scary,
Speaker 2: but also being used in a way that we must
Speaker 2: ask ourselves, like why they weren't doing this for us,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like while we wasn't getting
Speaker 2: this right. So I think that the low hanging fruit
Speaker 2: is this. We must find a way to step in
Speaker 2: where there are clear gaps in our system, and there
Speaker 2: are wealth gaps that determine a whole lot of the
Speaker 2: sentences and stuff like that. We need to get as
Speaker 2: loud as we can for Lakeisha as we do for Bryant.
Speaker 2: You get what I'm saying. And I think that I
Speaker 2: really do believe that our way of fixing fixing the
Speaker 2: system itself. And Angela Rye and a lot of other
Speaker 2: of my colleagues say the same thing. We have to
Speaker 2: focus in the individual states, right, That's what we have
Speaker 2: to focus at. But once we start to work together
Speaker 2: in these individual states, I think that we must then
Speaker 2: be able to link arms and start to petition the
Speaker 2: change that can make it up to the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: to make that governmental change that will affect the United States.
Speaker 2: And it's all in its entirety. So in short, what
Speaker 2: we need to do is the people who are closest
Speaker 2: to the fire usually know how to put it out,
Speaker 2: but that the ferses from the water holes. We need
Speaker 2: to find a way to feed the waterholes to the
Speaker 2: people who are on the ground, the activists, the people
Speaker 2: who are going to the courtrooms, the people who can
Speaker 2: tell you, look, don't vote for this judge, vote for
Speaker 2: that judge, because this judge will make the change. However,
Speaker 2: we can go back and make sure that our vote counts.
Speaker 2: We have to be educated in order to do it,
Speaker 2: but that is what we have to do in order
Speaker 2: to start to tinker away at this mighty, mighty system.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about this.
Speaker 3: That's why I got up out because the track you're
Speaker 3: on is I want to stay on this track.
Speaker 1: What did you think, man?
Speaker 3: Because this really really disappointed me when I saw our
Speaker 3: good brother, my son, and that's my daughter the front
Speaker 3: page of the New York Post labeled as a crime boss.
Speaker 3: Because Doron Madani is essentially doing what you're saying people
Speaker 3: should do. He's going to get somebody who's been through
Speaker 3: the system, who's reformed, put them in place on the
Speaker 3: Public Safety Committee. I don't think that's a better representative
Speaker 3: to have than somebody like a my song. And for
Speaker 3: him to be demonized like this, how did that make
Speaker 3: you feel?
Speaker 2: I mean, look at it. I felt attack. I felt
Speaker 2: attacked with that brother and I know him, like you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, and me and me and we
Speaker 2: just talked about a case. I have a new Jersey
Speaker 2: a few, you know, weeks ago. The case is Rore
Speaker 2: Hee and Brian. You could look at it. The kid
Speaker 2: was shot in the back of the neck. We got
Speaker 2: an assessive, assessive, uh, you know, force you going. But
Speaker 2: I was just rotating with that brother. So when I
Speaker 2: looked at that and I saw it, it came up
Speaker 2: on my timeline and I immediately felt attacked. You know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying as if it was me, And I
Speaker 2: think we all should have that type of response. And
Speaker 2: I'll just say this for anyone who's questioning, you know
Speaker 2: this move right when we just came through the pandemic, right,
Speaker 2: and we got through the pandemic through vaccines, right. So
Speaker 2: the vaccines are actually what the virus that has turned
Speaker 2: into an antibody, right, and we injected in ourselves as
Speaker 2: a defense mechanism. If this brother, which I know he
Speaker 2: will do with his experience being in this position, he
Speaker 2: is a voice that is the closest thing to the
Speaker 2: problems that we have to be able to provide us
Speaker 2: a solution. Why would we not want that? If we
Speaker 2: have a president right now who is the president, and
Speaker 2: he's been convicted of something, why can't we have a
Speaker 2: brother like this and more sisters like this in positions
Speaker 2: where they can say, look, I know what it's like
Speaker 2: right to be at home, not have childcare, and have
Speaker 2: to not be able to work, So that way they
Speaker 2: can provise the solution you want us to all come
Speaker 2: off dedicating all these dumbass arguments that you hear about
Speaker 2: with black people on snap. They don't stay on that. Well,
Speaker 2: why don't you put the people who have had the
Speaker 2: experience and why they had to be on snap position
Speaker 2: to be able to provide solutions so that we could
Speaker 2: snap snap the fuck out of here, if that's what
Speaker 2: you're all want to do, right?
Speaker 1: Is it just bothers me?
Speaker 3: Man? When I see your brother, you know, who went
Speaker 3: to prison, what he got convicted with.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Years old, forty nine You've you've been a model citizen
Speaker 3: since you've been home, and as soon as something like
Speaker 3: this happens, you get labeled a crime boss.
Speaker 2: A crime ball?
Speaker 1: Is it not liable?
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, what I would do is this I'm
Speaker 2: and I'm offering this for this brother if you want,
Speaker 2: I would strongly send them a letter, you know, and
Speaker 2: a letter would be a cease and desist, and would also,
Speaker 2: you know, give the real facts, cause that brother ain't
Speaker 2: never been no crime boss. Never understand. But look, let
Speaker 2: me tell you how scary this is and what they
Speaker 2: did to him. And this is what this reminded me of.
Speaker 2: So we we had the rico that was made famous
Speaker 2: by Judie Allen in New York taking down and tackling
Speaker 2: the mod problem. Right shortly after his success in doing that,
Speaker 2: who do you think became the target of the rico?
Speaker 2: Exactly inside a neighbor hoods that you and I know
Speaker 2: where guys were CouchSurfing, but all of a sudden when
Speaker 2: they got to federal court, they were named to be
Speaker 2: the federal you know, a guy who did everything and
Speaker 2: they're the king pin and all of that to be
Speaker 2: able to slam, slander us and continue to keep us
Speaker 2: in the historical depiction that has hindered black men forever.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what I thought about when I saw her.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it's not switching gears. I guess it's kind of
Speaker 4: in the same vein. There was a case that I
Speaker 4: know that you were involved in as well, the Waverley case. Yes, yes,
Speaker 4: I thought we're talking about like people not being able
Speaker 4: to live down what people title you at. So talk
Speaker 4: a bit about that case and how those brothers were
Speaker 4: found not guilty but still sitting and then you had
Speaker 4: to fight, like explain a little bit, because when I
Speaker 4: run it, I'm like, this makes no sense. Do you
Speaker 4: still have to stick with that the rest of your life?
Speaker 2: And it's a good outcome to that too, So I'm
Speaker 2: glad you brought that up, and let me also send
Speaker 2: a shout out to Ta Mika Mallory and also mindstn'.
Speaker 2: That's where I first became in contact with them because
Speaker 2: they saw my push on that story and they gave
Speaker 2: me a platform to tell that story at a larger
Speaker 2: place and help because we had to get them out
Speaker 2: on a presidential commutation. So here's what happened in this case.
Speaker 2: Two brothers down in Waverley, Virginia, and Waverley, Virginia has
Speaker 2: a dirty history. They are one of the last known
Speaker 2: towns to do a public open lynching, right, So that's
Speaker 2: the atmosphere in which these guys are charged with the
Speaker 2: murder of a police officer. And you know, they ain't
Speaker 2: got no money, ain't a lot of platforms and stuff down,
Speaker 2: ain't a lot of exposure. This is nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: So they are talked into taking plea deals that should
Speaker 2: already signal to you all this some bullshit, right, So
Speaker 2: they plead to taran accessory after the fact and Terrence
Speaker 2: pled to a man slat of charge in this case
Speaker 2: even though there was nothing to no evidence at all.
Speaker 2: But they were theyasically told by their attorney. Look, man,
Speaker 2: if you get the death penalty, which they were facing,
Speaker 2: ain't no way out of that even if you did
Speaker 2: you know, if you did not do it, you can
Speaker 2: get the death penalty. People get locked up and go
Speaker 2: to jail for stuff they didn't do all all the time.
Speaker 2: So they took these plea deals. When they took the
Speaker 2: plea deals, they thought they were just going to have
Speaker 2: to do five years and the other one had, you know,
Speaker 2: time released. The fans came around and indicted them as
Speaker 2: king pins of being drug dealers, and they said the
Speaker 2: murder was a result of them being king pins, right,
Speaker 2: and they were able to retry them in federal court.
Speaker 2: They go to federal court, they're found not guilty of
Speaker 2: the murder of this police officer, but they're found guilty
Speaker 2: of selling drugs, and they were sentenced to life in
Speaker 2: prison as an enhancement based on their guilty please in
Speaker 2: state court. So as a result, they're in federal prison
Speaker 2: for twenty something plus years, not because they're found guilty
Speaker 2: of killing the officer, but because they played guilty to
Speaker 2: save their life and their life was still taken from them.
Speaker 2: It is one of the most insane stories ever. We
Speaker 2: went to the last hour of Biden's presidency and he
Speaker 2: finally signed a commutation to commute their sentence. They came
Speaker 2: home and they've discharged off of their their their federal papers,
Speaker 2: and they're released. And we just did an event with
Speaker 2: them and we're working on the documentary to tell their
Speaker 2: story because we're trying to change the law. You should
Speaker 2: not be able to be found not guilty but still
Speaker 2: sentenced to life based on allegations in other matters. It's
Speaker 2: just ridiculous.
Speaker 3: How did y'all get the Biden administration to move because
Speaker 3: they weren't. They weren't moving on nothing.
Speaker 2: Man, Charla Mane, when I tell you the squeakiest we'll
Speaker 2: get the oil. Man, I was squeaky in the motherfucker
Speaker 2: like I just I wouldn't stop. Man. I went around
Speaker 2: and thankfully I got the support of some Virginia politicians
Speaker 2: and legislators. Man, we're talking about Tim Kaine and a
Speaker 2: bunch of folks who it took me nine years to
Speaker 2: get them out, So it wasn't like it was no
Speaker 2: short things. So they knew who I was. And I
Speaker 2: just think I think it was a matter of me
Speaker 2: being constant, me being persistent in God opening them doors.
Speaker 3: To be honest with you, absolutely, how do you determine
Speaker 3: whether or not a potential client is actually innocent?
Speaker 2: Sometimes you just got to go through it to find out, man.
Speaker 2: And I ain't gonna lie to you. Look, I done been,
Speaker 2: you know, thousands of dollars in hours and hours in
Speaker 2: only for DNA results to come back, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: telling me the truth. But let me say this, man,
Speaker 2: that can't stop us from sending the elevator back down,
Speaker 2: That can't keep us from extending our palms man, because
Speaker 2: there are some innocent brothers and oversentssed sisters and brothers
Speaker 2: who deserve our help. They need our help. And so
Speaker 2: if I get one out of ten, I take that one.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's how important it is to our culture, man,
Speaker 2: that we make sure we don't have a bad experience
Speaker 2: that makes us close to do it to everybody.
Speaker 4: My question for you, when I at my last job,
Speaker 4: I used to do these stories whenever we would hear
Speaker 4: about like Kim Kardashian or like you know, just any
Speaker 4: of the attorneys she was working with getting involved rough
Speaker 4: celebrities in general would speak out about people needing to
Speaker 4: be put back in front of a judge because something
Speaker 4: was done wrong in the legal system. There would be
Speaker 4: the other side, the families of these people who thought, Okay,
Speaker 4: I finally have peace, the case is solved, now we
Speaker 4: can rest, and then this comes back up and it
Speaker 4: kind of opens up a doorback for that right. How
Speaker 4: do you as an attorney deal with that because you
Speaker 4: want justice for the people who are wrong the justice system,
Speaker 4: but then it's opening up a whole new world of
Speaker 4: like chaos for this family connected to the person who
Speaker 4: yes was harmed.
Speaker 2: Here's what we do in our practice and what we
Speaker 2: do at Life After Justice. So after we do their
Speaker 2: full investigation, we presented to the victim's family as well,
Speaker 2: because we deserve it. They we think they deserve to
Speaker 2: have full closure, not the closure that they have been
Speaker 2: forced to get. So that case of Terrence and Faran,
Speaker 2: I took the complete and total investigation to the family
Speaker 2: of the officer and at one point his daughter was like, look,
Speaker 2: I have my attorney read this and I'm going to
Speaker 2: provide you with the letter that says I want complete
Speaker 2: and total transparency. I want to know what happened to
Speaker 2: my father. That letter went a long way and helping,
Speaker 2: and so I think that that is a way that
Speaker 2: you can do it. I think it's deserving, right, because
Speaker 2: you're opening up wounds and someone tragically lost their life
Speaker 2: and situations like that. I think we have to be
Speaker 2: respectful in mindful of everyone's feelings.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about you know, the prison library, right.
Speaker 3: I read when you started reading case law in the
Speaker 3: prison library. Yeah, and helping other guys with their cases.
Speaker 3: We always hear about that, Yeah, But and you did
Speaker 3: that before you ever set foot in the law school classroom.
Speaker 3: How did that prison law school shape you differently than
Speaker 3: the traditional legal education.
Speaker 2: I think what it did for me is personally, it
Speaker 2: helped me to better understand my clients and listen. Also,
Speaker 2: I mean I think that as an attorney, I think
Speaker 2: sometimes man, we can just be like, I know what
Speaker 2: I'm doing and stuff like that. I think what it
Speaker 2: did for me is it made me understand that just
Speaker 2: as portant as important as it is when in the case,
Speaker 2: and you also need to personalize yourself and learn from
Speaker 2: your clients and stuff like that. And so I think
Speaker 2: that I'm sitting across from guys who are you know,
Speaker 2: rightfully convicted, wrongfully convicted and I'm helping them out. And
Speaker 2: I think what it helped me do was master become
Speaker 2: a master class of the client communications that is necessary
Speaker 2: to be victorious in these tough cases.
Speaker 4: You know what I think about, and this is a
Speaker 4: lot of times I think about even people who are
Speaker 4: locked up right that may actually have done what they
Speaker 4: did and they need like some form of rehabilitation. Are
Speaker 4: we ever going to figure out a system that like
Speaker 4: actually rehabilitates people but also balances punishment, because I do
Speaker 4: think there is a form of punishment needed, but when
Speaker 4: it's your family member, you don't feel like that. But realistically,
Speaker 4: like it's like the conversation we have around like defund
Speaker 4: the police and what is actually supposed to mean what
Speaker 4: people think We're saying, Yeah, you need police, but you
Speaker 4: need them to like be human.
Speaker 2: Why can't we just advance, Like we've advanced in technology, man,
Speaker 2: And we advanced in technology from learning, right, we learned
Speaker 2: from our mistakes. We got better. Used to have to
Speaker 2: remember the phone with the core, man, My mama had
Speaker 2: a fifty extension court. We used to walk around to
Speaker 2: how we go to the basement at that phone. We've
Speaker 2: advanced from that, so it's like, why can't we advance
Speaker 2: in these things that affect our lives as much as
Speaker 2: this criminal system does. And I'll tell you in my perspective.
Speaker 2: So this is what I think is the problem. We
Speaker 2: have an adversarial system. And I don't care if it's
Speaker 2: a spitball contest or a pencil popping contest. You gonna
Speaker 2: want to win. Right when you win this contest. I'll
Speaker 2: give you an example of what I mean by that.
Speaker 2: I did a study of broad in London because I
Speaker 2: was trying to get through law school and the only
Speaker 2: way you can get like a bunch of credits was
Speaker 2: if you did this study of Broad. So I went
Speaker 2: over there. I spent about four weeks in The assignment
Speaker 2: was you need to go to their criminal system, see
Speaker 2: what's there, and write a paper on what you think
Speaker 2: will work in our system. So when I got there
Speaker 2: and you sit up in the top, you know of
Speaker 2: this thing called the Old Bailey or whatever it is, right,
Speaker 2: and you look down at the barristers, who are both
Speaker 2: men and women, and they're doing these arguments. And I
Speaker 2: remember this lady man. She was kicking man. She was
Speaker 2: kicking this dude butt up in there right with the
Speaker 2: argument that she had, and it was it was involved
Speaker 2: in the sense of the subject. It was involving actually
Speaker 2: a rape case, right, And then I seen her come
Speaker 2: back like three days later, and now she was actually
Speaker 2: defending a guy who was accused of a rape with
Speaker 2: the same passion and the same just vigorous, like this
Speaker 2: is my client. What I walked away from with that
Speaker 2: is you know what, That's how they're able to preserve
Speaker 2: the sympathy and empathy that is missing out of our system.
Speaker 2: We just want to win as defense attorneys. We just
Speaker 2: want to win as prosecutors, and sometimes when that happens,
Speaker 2: the thing that has lost is justice. I'm just going
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 4: It's been like that for like this whole thing and
Speaker 4: like breaking this whole system. When people had that conversation,
Speaker 4: I'm like, it's been like this for so many years,
Speaker 4: Like it's so far beyond us. Like sometimes I wonder,
Speaker 4: why do we believe that it's going to just be
Speaker 4: able to change and like you'll be able to change
Speaker 4: even people's spirits to not want to just win the case.
Speaker 2: Man, We got to get people closer to what is
Speaker 2: really happening, you know, and that's going to make people
Speaker 2: want to change. I think that, you know, until it,
Speaker 2: until Trump was actually prosecuted by the system, don't you
Speaker 2: think he had a problem with the system? You know
Speaker 2: what I mean? No, until he was prosecuted by it,
Speaker 2: then he had a problem with the system. Right, So
Speaker 2: I think that I.
Speaker 3: Still don't think he has a problem with how it
Speaker 3: does certain people, meaning black and brown people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true too, but.
Speaker 4: He has because his privilege when he encountered the system
Speaker 4: is a lot different and a lot of times you
Speaker 4: got people who create do these like you know, certain
Speaker 4: collar crimes and put in certain facilities. Yeah, so different
Speaker 4: than what we know. Like when I have a family
Speaker 4: member going to prison, it's a different experience. So even
Speaker 4: their close experience doesn't change how they view things because
Speaker 4: it's different for them.
Speaker 2: It's my opinion, right, it is different for them. But
Speaker 2: but I use something my grandfather used to use, which
Speaker 2: is man. You know, look, sometimes people don't underst shit
Speaker 2: to that shit on the bottom of their shoe, right,
Speaker 2: And that's that's really one of them things where it's
Speaker 2: like we need our leaders and I'm not gonna identify
Speaker 2: and point out on names. We need our leaders man
Speaker 2: to start to make the quick rapid change that we're
Speaker 2: seeing right now with this current administration. Man, Like, legitly,
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't think they had a courage to do it now,
Speaker 3: even if they get back in position with all the
Speaker 3: tools at their disposal, I don't think they got the courage.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll just say this, listen, don't do the job then,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like, if you don't have
Speaker 2: the courage to do what is necessary, don't do the
Speaker 2: job like we need y'all. Like, legitly, man, we need y'all.
Speaker 2: Especially as an attorney in court every day, Man, I'm
Speaker 2: seeing every day how slight changes could change the system. Like,
Speaker 2: for example, why do public defenders have the budget of
Speaker 2: a school teacher but the caseload of an entire administration.
Speaker 2: It ain't fair, you know what I mean? Like, so
Speaker 2: why can't we come in and just change that system alone?
Speaker 2: Ninety percent of the public relies on public defense, Like
Speaker 2: public defenders are different organizations like that. So it's like, man,
Speaker 2: if you want to change this system, why can't we
Speaker 2: change the budget to that? If you look at the
Speaker 2: pot chart and the Department of Justice, we spend the
Speaker 2: majority of that on what they call policing right, that's
Speaker 2: locking people up, that's building new prisons. We got a
Speaker 2: smart you can't even see that dot on what they
Speaker 2: spend on reintegration and mental health care. So it's like,
Speaker 2: why not just start there and you tell me if
Speaker 2: it worked. I give you another example. We've seen the
Speaker 2: war on drugs create mass incarceration. There was billions of
Speaker 2: dollars that were spent on the war on drugs. Let
Speaker 2: me see a war on childcare. Let me see a
Speaker 2: war on the school systems in Hyrack where I'm from.
Speaker 2: Let me see a war on putting them jobs back
Speaker 2: that in those areas, replacing those liquor stores with those jobs.
Speaker 2: And you talk to me in ten years and you
Speaker 2: tell me if that ain't produced a better product.
Speaker 3: Man, you said something earlier when you were talking about
Speaker 3: like the prosecutors. Man, it made me think, like you
Speaker 3: stent on both sides, right defended and attorney, what's one
Speaker 3: thing you wish every prosecutor, judge and cop had to
Speaker 3: experience or learn before they're allowed to hold that kind
Speaker 3: of power over somebody's life.
Speaker 2: Man, I really mishtaken experience a day in prison, in
Speaker 2: a day with the family members at home. Who have
Speaker 2: they loved ones in prison? Right? Because you're talking about
Speaker 2: astronomical phone calls. Prisons ain't placed in the city. They
Speaker 2: Appalachia somewhere, right. You know what I'm saying. You got
Speaker 2: to drive a Clinton correctional You ever went to Clinton.
Speaker 2: I got a couple of clients up there. Man, you
Speaker 2: might as well block out your calendar for that day,
Speaker 2: right and hope everything work out. So it's like that
Speaker 2: that part of it, in my opinion, is again they
Speaker 2: need to experience it, just to have that sympathy and empathy. Man.
Speaker 2: Everything doesn't require a hammer, you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: And that's that just seems like what happens when you
Speaker 2: get us in front of one of these systems. Man,
Speaker 2: we all are like nails to them.
Speaker 3: For people who listening, man, who will never see the
Speaker 3: inside of a courtroom beyond jury duty, what's one specific
Speaker 3: action they can take, you know, right now to actually
Speaker 3: move the needle on wrongful convictions and criminal justice reform
Speaker 3: in their own city?
Speaker 2: Pay attention man, like legitly man, if you're gonna be
Speaker 2: there and you're gonna show and also listen. In general,
Speaker 2: black folks show up the jury duty. Come on, y'all
Speaker 2: like legitly, man, like we have to show up the
Speaker 2: jury duty. Like you just don't know how many jury
Speaker 2: pools in the Northern District of Illinois where I'm doing
Speaker 2: a wrongful conviction case and I ain't got nothing but
Speaker 2: one or two of us in there, and then we're
Speaker 2: trying to get about that motherfucker like we need y'all. Man,
Speaker 2: we listen, look, our turn up cannot outweigh our turnout
Speaker 2: like legitly like that. So for me and my perspective,
Speaker 2: I like to have a good time too, man, But man,
Speaker 2: when it's time, when it's time to turn out, we
Speaker 2: got to turn out. Please show up the jury duty, y'all. Y'all, y'all,
Speaker 2: you just don't know. Man. If we get a jury
Speaker 2: pool that is diverse, right, we now cantrol a lot
Speaker 2: of the outcomes. Man, show up, show up, if you
Speaker 2: can be there, be there, right. I'll be like, man, Charlamagne,
Speaker 2: I'll be trying to get people are eye contact when
Speaker 2: they be on the jury pool, like please please don't no,
Speaker 2: it's go stand up and say you got a baby
Speaker 2: like that. Come on, But that's that's what we need
Speaker 2: because we present the case, but the jury makes a decision.
Speaker 2: We need black and brown folk. And let me make
Speaker 2: sure that I'm clarifying that not just black for black
Speaker 2: and brown folk, because we ain't the minority if we
Speaker 2: link up, you know what I'm saying. So that's what
Speaker 2: we need. Show up the jury duty, that's it, and
Speaker 2: even pay attention in that, take notes and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Be active in your participation because what your what your
Speaker 2: vote counts for right there in that moment, it's critical
Speaker 2: to the lives of a lot of my clients and
Speaker 2: a lot of lawyer's clients.
Speaker 3: What gives you hope that meaningful justice reform is actually possible?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 2: The cases, Man, I just look at the cases and
Speaker 2: I and I also am just a person who wants
Speaker 2: to be hopeful. I have to be right going through
Speaker 2: what I went through. Man, I'm a prayerful person. I'm
Speaker 2: a I'm a hopeful person. And I also get an
Speaker 2: opportunity to look at the babies that we have that
Speaker 2: are coming up right now. Man, and I'm I'm I'm afraid, y'all.
Speaker 2: Ain't don't even lie, you know, when I'm looking to
Speaker 2: talking to these mothers and fathers in these courtrooms. I
Speaker 2: believe that it's desensitizing our babies to believe that the
Speaker 2: criminal system is just a part of our lives. And
Speaker 2: some kids never experience that only in the movie and
Speaker 2: I and I. You know, I give you another example
Speaker 2: of of of people ask me, man, what's what's the
Speaker 2: toughest thing you've ever seen in prison? They expect me
Speaker 2: to say a knife fight or something like that. Man,
Speaker 2: I tell you the toughest thing that I ever seen
Speaker 2: in this prison. So I'm playing ball on the first
Speaker 2: couple of years that I get to to Green Bay Correctional.
Speaker 2: Green Bay Correctional in Wisconsin was was is a. It's
Speaker 2: a tough place, okay, And right now they are they
Speaker 2: are stabbing each other up in there, and it's just
Speaker 2: it doesn't make any sense what's going on with the violence.
Speaker 2: So I'm passing time. I playing basketball, and you know,
Speaker 2: everybody picking a squad, everybody got a nickname. And I'm hearing,
Speaker 2: you know, these guys on the other team, and they're
Speaker 2: like G Pops old man and G's son, right, I'm
Speaker 2: just thinking that they all from the same block. You
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. I ain't no, I ain't no.
Speaker 2: At all. It wasn't until I got in the visiting
Speaker 2: room and I was visiting. My mama came up to
Speaker 2: see me from Chicago, and I'm in the visiting room
Speaker 2: and I didn't realize, Man, this was three generations. Man,
Speaker 2: this was a grandfather, a father and his son.
Speaker 1: God.
Speaker 2: But what really messed me up was two women came
Speaker 2: to see him with three kids, and it was a
Speaker 2: little girl with him, and man, the little girl came
Speaker 2: through the medalal detective and raised the armor to be
Speaker 2: wanded because she was looking at her mama and grandmama
Speaker 2: be wanded coming to the prison. And you don't wand
Speaker 2: the kids anything like that? Man, like you, you know
Speaker 2: you this is a baby. What's she doing at three
Speaker 2: four years old? Knowing that she's supposed to stick her
Speaker 2: arms up in the air. I said, man, look we
Speaker 2: got addressed. We need to implement inside our schools of
Speaker 2: psychology sections that address specifically people who encounter the system,
Speaker 2: whether it be family members or whether it be people
Speaker 2: who are there in order to make some real, real,
Speaker 2: real change. That is the thing that I will never forget,
Speaker 2: And that happened almost twenty seven years ago. But I
Speaker 2: never forget it.
Speaker 4: You talk about the importance of pro bono work.
Speaker 2: Oh, look, I know.
Speaker 4: That's a part of the reason why even with your situation, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, an instance project got me out. It's important that
Speaker 2: we donate to the right organizations that are doing the
Speaker 2: work on the ground. And look, man, it's tough. You
Speaker 2: understand what I'm saying. There's a lot of organizations, a
Speaker 2: lot of people doing the same work, but we are system.
Speaker 2: There are people. Once you get convicted, you on your own,
Speaker 2: as a matter of fact, not people everybody. Once you
Speaker 2: get convicted and that first appeal is over with, you're
Speaker 2: on your own, right, So there are people who will
Speaker 2: never have an opportunity to present their case of innocence,
Speaker 2: not because they're not innocent, but because there's no money
Speaker 2: around to do it. So we have to donate to
Speaker 2: organizations like my organization, Life After Justice, people who are
Speaker 2: doing the work and taking on cases pro bono to
Speaker 2: be able to really get them the help that they need.
Speaker 2: We have to do this right because there are there
Speaker 2: are no The cavalry ain't coming.
Speaker 3: We the cavalry ourselves. That's sh listen man. Jared Adams
Speaker 3: his book Redeeming Justice from Defending to defender my fight
Speaker 3: for equity on both sides of a broken system is
Speaker 3: available everywhere you buy books now, man, thank you man.
Speaker 1: How can we continue to support your work?
Speaker 2: I know Life After Justice, but also the website is
Speaker 2: is Jared Adams all dot com. Life after Justice dot
Speaker 2: org is the website and y'all can support by sharing
Speaker 2: the story. Man, like honestly, Charla Magne. Listen, if we're
Speaker 2: gonna have a donkey of today, let's do a King
Speaker 2: of Queen of the day. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Straight up, Man, I love y'all. Thank y'all. I appreciate you, brother,
Speaker 2: I really do, man, So I really do.
Speaker 1: It's Jared Adams is the breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: Hold up every day a weak click your ass up
Speaker 3: the breakfast Club.
Speaker 1: You're finish what y'all done.