Andy Thompson

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Jarrett Adams, a Chicago man who spent nearly 10 years behind bars for a wrongful sexual assault conviction in Wisconsin, won’t take sides in the Steven Avery-Brendan Dassey controversy.

But the 35-year-old exoneree says both men deserve new trials.

“If you want to preserve the justice system, you have to give them a new trial,” Adams, who has made an amazing transformation into a legal career since his 2000 conviction was overturned, said in an interview with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

Adams, a recent graduate of Loyola Law School in Chicago, weighed in on “Making a Murderer,” the blockbuster 10-part Netflix docu-series that focuses on the legal odyssey of Avery, who is serving a life sentence for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc County.

“I don’t know if they are guilty,” Adams said. “What I’m saying is they deserve a new trial because the (law enforcement) tactics were downright unethical.”

Long road to freedom

Adams overcame some monumental hurdles in winning his freedom in 2007.

It all began on Sept. 6, 1998, when the then-17-year-old Adams and two friends drove from Chicago to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater to get a taste of college life.

“We were stupid kids,” said Adams, who eventually wound up in a dorm room where women were present. “I shouldn’t have been there.”

Allegations that the three men sexually assaulted one of the women surfaced, a contention that Adams and his friends denied. All three were later charged with sexual assault and false imprisonment.

“None of it ever happened,” Adams said of the assault allegations. “I told the cops, ‘you definitely have the wrong guy.’”

Adams’ first trial ended in a mistrial. But he was re-tried and was convicted by a Juneau County jury. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

One of his friends also was convicted and was sentenced to 20 years in prison; the third man’s trial ended in a hung jury, and prosecutors dismissed the charges.

“We suffered at the hands of the criminal justice system,” Adams said.

He said his public defender didn’t call any witnesses on his behalf, failed to adequately challenge the alleged victim’s testimony, didn’t call an alibi witness and failed to present evidence from medical personnel.

“They had no defense theory,” Adams said.

Fighting back

Adams wasn’t content to serve his full sentence. He studied law in prison and wrote letters to gain support for a federal appeal. His conviction had been upheld by the Wisconsin appellate court.

Eventually, the Wisconsin Innocence Project took the case, which was anything but a slam dunk.

“We knew this was going to be an uphill battle,” said Keith Findley, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and co-founder of the Innocence Project.

With only a week before the deadline for Adams’ appeal expired, a writ of habeas corpus was filed with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

”We went to work on it,” Findley said. “It was a terrible injustice.”

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Findley said the defense did an “anemic investigation” and essentially put on no defense.

In its strongly worded ruling, the Seventh Circuit concluded that the error was so serious in Adams’ case that no reasonable judge could rule otherwise.

Findley’s team reached Adams in prison via telephone to deliver the good news.

“I was in segregation,” he said. “They put me on the phone. They said, ‘Jarrett, you won.’ I couldn’t cry; I couldn’t be happy. I had to get out (of prison) to believe it. I told them, ‘God, I appreciate it.’”

Adams didn’t walk out of prison that day in 2006. The prosecution had the option of re-trying Adams, but ultimately declined. He was released in early March 2007 after the prosecution filed a motion to dismiss all charges.

Adams will always be grateful to the Wisconsin Innocence Project for its work on his case.

“I would not be here without them,” Adams said. “They took the case, and they didn’t have to. I owe them the very reason I’m here.”

Adams has since graduated from law school. He is an adjunct professor at Loyola and teaches a course in wrongful convictions. He also has been a clerk at the Seventh Circuit, the same court that overturned his conviction.

“Very few exonerees go on and graduate from law school,” Findley said of Adams. “It’s a pretty remarkable achievement.”

Adams said he remembers “the look of anguish” on his mother’s face when she visited him in prison. He hopes that he can help others in similar situations.

“I don’t want to see this happen again,” he said.

Andy Thompson: 920-996-7270 or awthompson@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @Thompson_AW