Jarret Adams is a recent graduate with an usual path to becoming a lawyer - his first experience with the law was as a defendant. Now he's won a fellowship to clerk on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, the very court that overturned his conviction. MSNBC's legal chief correspondent Ari Melber reports.
Lester Holt interviews Jarrett Adams, who was wrongfully convicted of sexual assault when he was just 17 and — as an attorney — is now helping others who are in similar positions as he used to be.
When Jarrett Adams was 17 years old, he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Fueled by his desire for justice, Adams began studying the law while incarcerated. After reading countless books, journals and newspapers, he reached out to the Wisconsin Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to reforming the criminal justice system.
As companies that claimed to "back" the Black Lives Matter movement go silent and the GOP bails on justice reform talks, one man who served ten years in prison for a wrongful conviction is working to improve the system. Now an attorney, Jarrett Adams joins MSNBC's Ari Melber to discuss the push for change.
LIDIA CELEBRATES AMERICA:
Convicted of a crime that he did not commit and sentenced to 28 years in a maximum-security prison Jarrett Adams served nearly 10 years before being exonerated. Adams used the injustice he endured as inspiration to become an advocate and attorney for the underserved. Lidia meets with Jarret virtually to cook one of her favorite pasta recipes, Bucatini with pancetta, tomatoes and onions.
How do you turn the trauma of wrongful conviction into the drive to become a champion of other people who find themselves in the same situation?
