After being wrongly convicted, this black man obtained a law degree. He now advocates for criminal justice reform

As a teenager, Jarrett Adams was wrongly convicted and served 10 years in prison, though he had not committed a crime. After his release, Adams earned a law degree and co-founded the nonprofit Life After Justice, which fights to forestall others from suffering the identical fate.

Adams believes that with the upcoming presidential election, President Biden should prioritize wrongful convictions as a part of his criminal justice reform campaign.

According to the 2022 report, “Race and wrongful convictions in the United States“, “Blacks make up 13.6% of the American population, but account for 53% of the 3,200 exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations. Judging by the acquittals, innocent black Americans are seven times more likely to be falsely convicted of serious crimes than white Americans.”

In addition, Death Penalty Information Center The (DPIC) study “found that in two-thirds of overturned death sentence convictions, misconduct, perjury, or false accusations played a role in 70.7% of black cases and 93.8% of Hispanic releases.”

A review of Biden’s history dating back to his time within the Senate shows the president has been aware of the problem for a long time. When the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) was being considered within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, Biden “proposed several amendments, ranging from removing the restrictions from the bill altogether to applying them only to federal prisoners. “Biden and other opponents of the bill have made the now-predictive argument that, without amendments, the restrictions will make it nearly impossible for federal courts to hear credible claims of innocence,” he added. Washington Post Office reports. However, Biden’s amendments failed and President Bill Clinton ultimately signed the bill into law.

Nearly fifteen years later, in 2020, Biden she ran a campaign on a commitment to “strengthen America’s commitment to justice and reform our criminal justice system.” Did the president keep his word?

Biden “A plan to strengthen America’s commitment to justice,” it states, “[b]Because we cannot ensure that death penalty cases are handled correctly every time, Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and encourage states to follow the federal government’s lead. Instead, these individuals should serve life sentences without probation or parole.”

But to date, Biden still hasn’t concluded the method death penaltydespite expressing opposition to its use, although legal experts consider that using presidential powers, Biden could do it “in minutes, with a few strokes of a pen.”

Biden used his power to grant clemency for the primary time in 2022, issuing three such sentences Sorryone among which went “to the first Black Secret Service agent who worked on the details of a president who had long maintained he was wrongly convicted.”

But once more, the president didn’t take more aggressive actions. During the conversation, wrongfully convicted Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velasquez asked the president directly: “how can we create clear, uniform standards for clemency so that inmates are motivated to change and know what they need to achieve to show it” are willing to return to their families and communities?” The president response: “standards of leniency cannot be set. You can’t write a law saying that under these circumstances the CEO will be granted a pardon, like the governor did for you, or what I just did to anyone who has ever been convicted of possessing and smoking marijuana. I can only do this in federal prisons, for example.”

The bottom line is that Biden must do more on this issue. As Adams told ESSENCE: “Justice cannot be selective; it must be a universal promise fulfilled. We need real reform by addressing the system that allows false imprisonment and the post-conviction obstacles that block acquittals with impunity. Terence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne – two men found not guilty of murder and yet spent twenty years in prison because of the crime – are prime examples of this injustice.”

“It is time not only to talk about reforms, but to implement changes that will ensure accountability for those responsible for false imprisonment and allow innocence to break down all procedural barriers,” Adams continued.

“Granting clemency to individuals like Terrence and Ferrone is a critical step in demonstrating our commitment to a fair and equitable system,” Adams added. “Let us turn promises into action and bring about the changes our justice system so desperately and immediately needs.”