Jarrett Adams.Photo: Negine Sekandari
Random House
After the conviction was reversed, I got an opportunity to hug his mom. My client was white, I’m Black. That’s a rarity. It is almost always the opposite way, where the lawyer is white and the client is Black. To be on the reverse of that is something that can’t be missed. It’s hard to describe, but it feeds the fuel of my drive to continue to dismantle this criminal justice system that has never, ever been designed to equally and effectively protect African Americans in the United States.
When my family was in the courtroom, the judge and prosecutor weren’t even looking at us. They weren’t even acknowledging us. When I got that first big victory, they had to acknowledge me because they had to say, “Attorney Jarrett Adams.”
What I’m doing, there is no off switch. I will continue to fight in honor of the women in my family who fought for me. My objective, my goal is to balance the scales, to save the lives of young Black men that we’re throwing away right now.
I feel like I’m doing great work, but sometimes it feels like I’m spooning water out of the ocean. I wrote this book so that readers learn something that is never highlighted in court: They make it seem like everyone is born at the scene of their accusation and they were never a person before that. It’s important to humanize my story because no matter what — white, black, green, yellow — everybody has a mother.
—As told to Sam Gillette
Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken Systemis on sale now.
source: people.com
