Northwestern Law Bluhm Legal Clinic
Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth
Search
Northwestern
Search Help Northwestern Law

See Photos from
the CWCY Launch Event

Link to Video CWCY video trailer
See why this issue demands attention!

Facebook Click here to visit us on Facebook.

Facebook Cases We're Following

Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth Logo
Return to Exonerees List

Jarrett Adams

State: Wisconsin
Incident Date: 09/05/98
 Age at Arrest: 17
 Conviction Date: 2000
 Age when Exonerated: 25
 Exonerated Date: 2009
 Time Served: 8 years
 Conviction: Rape
 False Confession: False
 Implicated by Another Youth: False
Details

In 2000, nineteen-year-old Jarrett Adams and co-defendant Dimitri Henley were convicted of second-degree rape after a two day trial and sentenced to twenty years in prison. Adams was seventeen at the time of the crime, when supposedly he, Henley, and a third black male raped a white female student at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The three men had been playing video games in another room in the dormitory, before they went upstairs to the victim’s room. When the victim’s roommate found them, the victim did not insinuate any foul play. However, later she went to the hospital and reported the incident as rape. At Adams and Henley’s trial, the judge sentenced them both to twenty years in prison, and added eight more years when Adams protested his innocence. In 2009, the 7th Circuit reversed Adams' conviction on IAC grounds based on the finding of evidence that had not been presented at trial: Adams's new attorney noticed a police report quoting the student in whose room the victim had met the defendants playing video games as saying that he had seen her socializing with the alleged assailants in the dormitory after the supposed gang rape had occurred. Shortly thereafter, the prosecution dropped all charges.



Post Exoneration:


News

A Rape That Wasn't
youtube
Watch this fantastic video of the story of Jarrett Adams, who at 17 was wrongfully accused of "a rape that wasn't."