Exonerees Antione Day and Jarrett Adams are tirelessly working with the Loyola University Chicago School of Law Life After Innocence program to help exonerees find housing after their release from prison. The Life After Justice Center in Chicago was created after Day came up with the idea to find a home and make it habitable for Illinois exonerees shortly after their release from prison.
“Hopefully this will inspire others, help others and ease the flow of the people coming home and prevent them from re-entering the prison system,” Adams said.
Day was wrongfully convicted of a murder in 1990, and in 2001 the Illinois Appellate Court overturned his conviction based on ineffective assistance of counsel. He currently works as an outreach coordinator of prison re-entry in Chicago.
Adams was convicted at age 17 of sexual assault and spent nine years in prison before he was released due to ineffective assistance of counsel. Now, he works as a full-time investigator for the Federal Defender Program in Chicago and is in law school.
Both Day and Adams are working with the Life After Innocence program to help build a community at the Life After Justice Center. In addition to developing a business plan for the center, future plans for the center also include providing job training, employment, counseling and other services from outside providers.
“We want to create a safe environment and offer things like job training, anger management and how to open a bank account. We were given an opportunity and we want to pay it forward,” Day said.
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www.ncip.scu.edu
