ISAAC WRIGHT JR. STUDIED LAW IN PRISON AND BEAT A LIFE TERM
Isaac Wright Jr., a New Jersey music producer convicted in 1991 as a drug kingpin and sentenced to life, taught himself law behind bars and cross-examined a detective who alleged the prosecutor had ordered police to falsify reports and fabricate evidence. The case against him collapsed, he walked out of prison, and he later became a practicing lawyer.
Before his arrest, Wright was a 28-year-old producer who had co-founded the group The Cover Girls, which included his wife, Sunshine Wright. In 1989, he was arrested with 10 other people over an alleged cocaine ring in Somerset County. He was one of the first people ever charged under New Jersey’s 1986 drug kingpin law, according to Blurred By Lines.
Wright studied state law while awaiting trial and represented himself. He told the jury the prosecution was built on a falsehood.
“This entire case is based on a lie – all motivated by jealousy, vindictiveness and racial selectiveness,”
The jury found him guilty on April 26, 1991. He was sentenced to life, and The New York Times reported he had to serve at least 30 years before he could be considered for parole.
Wright kept studying. He worked as a paralegal for a prison group called Inmate Legal Assistance, representing fellow inmates charged with infractions. That gave him courtroom practice for the fight he really wanted, which was exposing the Somerset County prosecutor, Nicholas L. Bissell Jr.
That fight came to a head at a 1996 evidentiary hearing. Wright cross-examined Somerset County detective James Dugan, who alleged that Bissell ordered officers to falsify police reports and fabricate evidence. Dugan also alleged that Bissell secured false testimony from witnesses and made deals with defense attorneys so their clients would name Wright as the kingpin.
The Times reported that the 1991 conviction involved an illegal cocaine seizure and perjured testimony from three co-defendants who were offered leniency. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, two prosecution witnesses recanted and admitted they had falsely implicated Wright. The judge found that Bissell concealed evidence of a deal with a witness and allowed false testimony, and that police covered up the falsification of search warrants. Judge Leonard Arnold ordered a new trial, saying the state’s actions violated “the fundamental principles of justice,” the Times reported. Wright was released on bail in December 1996.
Bissell had already been convicted on 30 counts, including obstruction of justice, perjury and abuse of power, according to Blurred By Lines. He was under house arrest awaiting sentencing when he cut off his ankle monitor and fled. Police tracked him to a Nevada hotel room, where he died by suicide on November 26, 1996.
The Registry says prosecutors dismissed the remaining charges against Wright on July 2, 1998. He later reached a settlement in his civil suit for more than $480,000.
Then he set about becoming a lawyer. Wright earned his undergraduate degree in 2002, graduated from Saint Thomas University School of Law in 2007 and passed the New Jersey bar exam in 2008. The state’s Committee on Character then spent nine years investigating him. Its rules let it request records from employers, financial institutions, medical personnel and others, and it can withhold certification if a candidate refuses. In 2017, the New Jersey Supreme Court admitted him to the bar.
He went on to practice at the Newark firm Hunt, Hamlin & Ridley, and he has been clear about his purpose.
“I went to law school for one reason and one reason only,” Wright says. “To slay giants for a price. And if the giant is big enough and the cause is important enough, I’ll do it for free, especially when it involves helping those who cannot help themselves.”
His story became the ABC series “For Life,” produced by rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, with Wright as executive producer and consultant. The lead character is Aaron Wallace, and some details, including those about Wright’s wife and daughter, were changed. Wright told The New York Times the show makes viewers “an extended family of a person that’s incarcerated.”
On December 1, 2020, Wright announced a run for New York City mayor, citing criminal justice reform, housing, infrastructure and the economy as key issues. He lost the Democratic primary on June 22, 2021, in a race Eric Adams ultimately won. Wright published a memoir, “Marked for Life: One Man’s Fight for Justice from the Inside,” in 2022.
In 2023, he joined The Legal Advocacy and Education Commission as Director of Advocacy. “We are confident that Wright’s unique perspective and passion for justice will further empower our work and impact,” the group wrote in its announcement.
