who has a prior criminal history of domestic violence. now the woman continues to explain that she had attended a class for domestic abuse survivors and dropped the charges in the attempt to move on with her life. and here is the judge s response. i hereby find you in contempt of court and sentence you to three days in the county jail. turn around. so we want to engage this video in part because it feels to me like it goes like the one celebrating this release of federal prisoners and this idea of nonviolence, but even three days in a county jail for a woman who is a domestic violence survivor with a 1-year-old at home who did not expect to go to jail when she arrived at court. so who knows where her 1-year-old is in that moment. just everything about it is feels revealing about the problems in our system. for me, it reveals how
two friends where they were accused of sexual assault. i maintain my innocence from the beginning because i was innocent. but adams court appointed lawyer did not offer a defense at trial. it s as if, you know, i m looking at myself in a courtroom, you know, while the train is coming down the tracks. you know, getting ready to hit me head on. living behind bars, a cell mate told him to stop playing basketball and to fight for his freedom and justice instead. adams taught himself case law and wrote to the wisconsin innocence project. we got the letter from jarrod in time to allow us to do a federal appeal. we had powerful new evidence that had none been presented to the jury. after nine years in prison, adams case reached the top federal court in the midwest, in a unanimous vote, the justices threw out his conviction ruling he didn t receive an adequate defense. the day that they overturned my conviction, i was taken down out of my cell to a phone room.
that judge is still in that position. i think she is an elected judge. in that case congress, florida. but that s a problem. because, i mean, yes, the woman should have shown up for court. but she is a witness. two, she is a she s a victim. so in the interest of justice, the judge should be trying to figure out a way to get her, you know, yes to get her to testify. but to contempt of court, i mean, it s ridiculous. one more quick thing i note, that s a woman judge. i think this tells us something about the importance of changing a culture and not just changing the faces. right. you can t just put new bodies in the same system and expect it to be fundamentally different. and sometimes elected women want to show that they are as tough as a man would be in that same position. some of them are running for president. sorry. thank you. that seems like too much. we don t know that that is so all right. i do want to come you to on this. i think respect for the law, for syst
society. and his mission didn t stop there. adams won a fellowship to clerk on the seventh kishgt court of appeals. the very court that overturned his conviction. we asked former federal prosecutor mike monico if he s ever seen that happen. no, i never have. i mean jarrod is remarkable. for someone to argue before that court is a really big deal. for someone to clerk for that court is an even bigger deal. i m very proud of him. i m as proud as if i was i had mother. adams says his story is just getting started. i say to myself, the story of jarrod adams won t be remembered as, you know, personal wrongly convicted got out. no. story of jarrod adams is going to be person wrongly convicted got out and worked each and every day until he gasped his last breath to change the criminal justice system for the better. all right. what is next for jarrod? jarrod is doing this
clerkship at the court. he has another clerkship lined up in a federal district court in new york. and when we spoke about him is his desire to change the way the prison systems operate, the reenare triprograms. he makes the point that he s able to do public service but we re locking up so many people who can t contribute to society. another thing i wanted to raise is as we look at this is something his lawyer mr. finley talked about. what it means to fight for long shot odds in this terrain. take a listen. jarrod s story has affected me in a number of ways. one of which was it has sort of reconfirmed this notion that it s very hard for people to hold on to that despite all odds, it s worth the fight. it s worth continuing. i will admit that when my students came to me and said let s file this habous petition, i said i know what the standards are. i know what a long shot it is. we had very little time. i thought it probably wasn t worth the effort. and i learned from this that