This is beyond inspirational.
Via The Root:
In 1996 a 17-year-old Jarrett Adams told his parents he was staying at a friend’s house. Adams and two friends ended up at a campus party at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater.
“I had no business being up there,” Adams told the Chicago Tribune. “It was [a] … recipe for disaster.”
The three friends ended up in the dorm of a woman they met at the party. She accused the three young men of rape.
Adams knew that he didn’t commit any crime; his lawyer told him the evidence was thin. But even with barely any witness testimony and no evidence to support his guilt, he was convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison.
“When they said, ‘Guilty,’ it was shocking,” he told the Tribune. “It was a numbing experience.”
His days behind bars were filled with basketball and chess, until one day his cell mate challenged him to fight his case.
“He was like, ‘Sit down. I’m in here for the rest of my life for something I did do. You are here for some absolute bull crap with no evidence, and you’re not going to fight to get out,’ ” Adams told CBS 2 Chicago. “And so it really woke me up.”
With the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, Adams fought the case, and in 2006, after he’d spent 10 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, an appeals court threw out his conviction.
Since then Adams has been working hard to make up for lost time, and last week he received his law degree from Loyola.
“I couldn’t have imagined this day,” Adams told the news station.
But Adams isn’t stopping there. In August he will serve as a public-interest fellow to U.S. Circuit Judge Ann C. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit—the same court that reversed his wrongful conviction.
Wow. What a great example of a man who didn’t let the system hold him back. Many men are sitting in jail right now that have been falsely accused of rape. Not only was he exonerated from jail, but now he has earned a law degree and knows the system. If you would like to donate to Adams’s GoFundMe account to help raise money for his fellowship expenses and health insurance, please click here. Congratulations to Adams on receiving his law degree!