The Case of Richard Beraneck

Jarrett Adams’ first case and first win as a lawyer and as the first Innocence Project exoneree that the organization hired as an attorney was that of Richard Beranek.

Taking on this case exemplified Adams’ passion to right the wrongs of the criminal justice system, which he himself had previously and horrendously experienced. His client had already spent almost 30 years behind bars in a Wisconsin jail for a crime Adams believed he was wrongfully convicted of. Based on eyewitness misidentification and unvalidated forensic science, his client was sentenced on February 8, 1990, to 243 years in prison on the charge of sexual assault and burglary. On May 17, 2018, based on new DNA testing, and years of detective-like investigative work, his client was exonerated.

1990

Richard Beraneck was sentenced on February 8, 1990, to 243 years in prison on the charge of sexual assault and burglary.

2018

On May 17, 2018, based on new DNA testing, and years of detective-like investigative work, his client was exonerated.

Adams’ co-counsel on the Beranek case was Keith Finley, the Innocence Project lawyer who had helped free Adams over a decade earlier. Justice in his first case was painfully ironic: Adams helped free his client in the same court, in the same state that didn’t even look at him when they wrongfully convicted him decades earlier of a crime he did not commit. Now based on an FBI hair analyst’s testimony that was erroneous, flawed serology and hair analysis, Adams he was able to right the wrong of another man and help free his first client Richard Beranek.