10 Questions. Reversal of Fortune

• Author: Jenny B. Davis
• Pages: 14-15

Inter Alia | 10 QUESTIONS

plement an Asian American Studies

program ; and the overturning of Fred

Korematsu’s 40-year-old conviction for

his resistance to military orders banish-

ing Japanese Americans.

Korematsu’s conviction during WWII

was upheld by the Supreme Court in

1944 in a landmark and much-criticized

decision justifying the exile of Japanese

Americans. But the more dangerous

precedent was the Supreme Court’s

near-total deference to the fraudulent

proof presented and later revealed in

our case—that the government altered,

suppressed and destroyed evidence

contradicting the government’s claim of

disloyalty and the danger of Japanese

Americans.

We still hear the echoes of history

today. And it is infuriating to see the de-

monization repeated against Muslims,

Arabs, immigrants and marginalized

groups. It is also disheartening to repeat

the same deference to the president that

was the centerpiece of the Korematsu

case. Our campaign, Stop Repeating

History (stoprepeatinghistory.org),

hopes to remind America of the damage

racism and unfettered power can wreak

on disfavored people and on our na-

tion’s soul.

Maybe the path I took was some-

what nonlinear. I was trying to navigate

in a racialized society, harmonizing my

love for this country with the cruelty it

in icted and admiring the rule of law

but recognizing its limitations. In a mid-

career crisis, I once questioned whether

I should  nd another occupation. I lined

up the qualities I wanted in a job, mea-

sured them against my strengths and

weaknesses, and discovered that I was

best  t to practice law with my partners

who have the same passion for justice,

hard work and great legal skills. I never

had to look back. Q

Dale Minami is senior counsel at Min-

ami Tamaki, an Asian American-owned

 rm in San Francisco, and he special-

izes in personal injury law. He is a

past recipient of the ABA’s Thurgood

Marshall Award and Spirit of Excel-

lence Award, and he was the 2019 ABA

Medal awardee.

10 QUESTIONS

Reversal

of Fortune

He was once in prison for life, but

now this New Jersey lawyer’s story

has inspired an ABC TV series

BY JENNY B. DAVIS

In 1991, a Somerset County, New

Jersey, jury decided Isaac Wright

Jr. was a drug kingpin and sent

him to prison for life plus 70

years on related charges . Except Wright

didn’t do it—he was framed by the very

prosecutor arguing the case against

him. Wright spent the next seven years

studying law from his maximum-secu-

rity prison cell, eventually proving his

innocence and winning his freedom. He

achieved signi cant legal victories for

20 of his fellow inmates along the way.

Sounds like the perfect plot for a TV

show, right? That’s exactly what rapper/

TV producer Curtis “50

Cent” Jackson thought

when he heard Wright’s

story. Jackson assem-

bled a team to adapt

Wright’s story, and the

 ctionalized drama, For

Life, debuted in Febru-

ary on ABC.

But there’s more. To

overturn his convictions, Wright  rst

won a state supreme court case for

another inmate, which he then used to

invalidate his own kingpin conviction.

The remaining convictions crumbled

after a dramatic court hearing where

Wright got a veteran police detective to

admit he’d lied to the jury in Wright’s

original trial.

Later, both the judge and the prose-

cutor involved in Wright’s original case

were investigated by federal authorities

for crimes unrelated to Wright’s case,

including tax fraud and embezzlement.

Both were convicted. The judge ended

up disbarred and in prison; the prosecu-

tor killed himself rather than serve time.

Wright was pro se when he did his

trial from prison, unlike his TV persona.

He spent seven years post-release earn-

ing back-to-back undergraduate and

law degrees. Today, Wright is a litigator

with the Newark, New Jersey-based

 rm Hunt, Hamlin & Ridley, primarily

practicing criminal law. He also found-

ed the Isaac Wright Jr. Network for Jus-

tice , which upon its completion will be

a searchable national online database

for legal and social justice nonpro ts.

Congratulations on the show!

How has its success impacted

your daily life?

It’s all been positive, but it has increased

the burden a thousandfold in a number

of different ways. We have a huge  rm,

and we have a lot of attorneys who are

very experienced, very competent and

very aggressive, but everyone who calls

wants Isaac. A lot of them don’t really

need me, but they want me. I take a lot

of pro bono cases, and I always have

to balance my pro bono cases with

my paying clients because this is a law

 rm—this is a business.

How involved were you in

bringing For Life to life?

I was extremely involved. I was

there pitching it to ABC, and I sat

with the writer as he was develop-

ing the idea around my story. I read

every script, and I was right there

while it was being  lmed.

Was it weird to see your life story

transformed into f‌i ction?

One of the things I learned early on—

and had to deal with early on—was

the issue of liberties. During the time

I spent with the writer, I got to un-

derstand and be comfortable with the

liberties. For example, the pilot is based

on a client I actually helped get out of

prison while I was in prison, but I was

not able to argue the case.

Let’s talk more about your court-

room advocacy before you were

a lawyer. You represented your-

self at trial. Did you have previ-

ous legal experience?

“ I discovered

a gift I never

knew I had.”

—Isaac Wright Jr.

ABA JOURNAL | JUNE–JULY 2020

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