From Sing Sing to the Supreme Court: A Conversation With JJ Velazquez and Dan Slepian

In 2016, from his cell at the Sing Sing maximum security prison, Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez wrote an 11-page research paper on touch DNA and sent it to federal authorities. He argued that a forensic technique already used to convict more than 125 people in New York should also be used to prove him innocent.

Five years later, after 23 years, 7 months, and 8 days behind bars, JJ was released when Governor Andrew Cuomo commuted his sentence. But it took another three years, and the touch DNA evidence he had championed from his cell, to clear his name. On September 30, 2024, a Manhattan judge vacated his conviction, fully exonerating him of a crime he didn’t commit.

“The only remedy to resistance is persistence,” he told us backstage at ClioCon 2025, just before his keynote with journalist Dan Slepian, who spent over two decades investigating his case.

We sat down with JJ and Dan to talk about what builds trust between a client and an attorney, the cost of overpromising, the investigative work that too often doesn’t happen, and what it means to be “an architect of justice” in someone else’s life.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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How do you develop trust between a client and an attorney in a high-stake case?

JJ Velazquez: Trust is actually something that’s very hard to obtain. Particularly when someone representing you is essentially a stranger who is now taking on one of the most important tasks in your life.

I remember when Dan first got attorneys involved in my case. It was Bob Gottlieb and Celia Gordon. Celia had this way where she didn’t feel like an attorney—she felt like my sister. You could see it in the mannerisms. Sometimes attorneys are all business. But sometimes it also helps to ask a few extra questions about how your client is feeling while they’re incarcerated. What’s their mindset? When you see that somebody cares about you and believes in the person that you are, particularly if you’re innocent, that starts to establish a level of trust.

Attorneys trying to establish trust need to focus on becoming more relational in their relationship with their clients, as opposed to just keeping it all business. Because if I feel like you’re all business, then that’s just where I’m going to keep you. And so there’s no trust there.

Dan Slepian: As a journalist, and as a lawyer, you’re taught to have this rigorous detachment. But what you’re not taught is that you also have a responsibility to be a human being. And those two things come in conflict sometimes. The detachment keeps you objective, but in cases where there’s innocence, or where you realize the system has destroyed a life for no reason, innocence is objective. It’s not an opinion.

You learn that you have an obligation—for me it’s in my gut—a responsibility to be more human. People have accused me of being an advocate. And it makes me shudder. I’m an advocate for what’s right and what’s true.

 

What are some mistakes in how lawyers communicate with clients who are overwhelmed by the system?

JJ Velazquez: Mistakes are more common than anybody would care to believe in terms of the legal profession. A lot of lawyers and prosecutors, whether they work on the defense or the prosecution, have been trained the same way. Came through the same classes, same professors, same tests. And so a lot of them adopt the same mentality in some ways. The difference really comes down to an individual and choice.

I truly believe that most people who get into the legal industry come with the right intentions. But then when you get really involved, you start to realize that the fast path to promotion may not be what you expected. It’s not about doing the right thing—it’s about doing what’s right for the culture.

When we start looking at promotions as the incentive as opposed to the truth being the guiding light, a lot of mistakes can happen and people fall through the cracks.

 

What’s the fine line between being supportive and overpromising, especially when a legal battle gets very long?

JJ Velazquez: Every attorney that I’ve met, even the ones that I may not have liked as much along my journey, none of them have given me false promises. Except for one. He gave me a promise that he would have me back down in six months and he would get the case thrown out. And I ended up doing 23 years, 7 months, and 8 days. I’m forever scarred by what he created—the expectation. You know what it is to have your life hanging in the balance, you’re actually innocent, you’ve been sentenced to life, and then you have a lawyer who’s like, “I’ll have you down in six months, we’ll get you out of prison.”

Nobody in the legal profession should ever make a promise because promises can’t be kept inside of the legal parameters that we work and are governed by. There are too many parties for one person to be able to make a promise. What they should do is always lean on the end of objectivity. Lay out the options. Talk about the possibilities, and what they’re striving for. Explain the strategy that they’re trying to employ to get this result. But to give somebody false promises is unethical and anybody who starts that way should not even be in the legal profession.

 

What do you wish your attorneys had done investigatively at the beginning of your case?

JJ Velazquez: The reason why I spent 27 years fighting an unjust conviction was because my attorneys never did an investigation from the beginning.

Dan Slepian: It was one of the first things that JJ ever said to me 23 years ago. “I never got an investigation.” And I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. Because I knew he had a defense investigator inside. And he was facing the death penalty. How could he not get an investigation? And I found that guy. You know what he said? “No, I didn’t do anything.” That was a capital case. He got a check, but he didn’t do anything. Guy’s life is on the line. It’s tragic, and it’s shocking, and it happens all the time.

 

You became a certified paralegal while incarcerated. Having seen both sides of the client-attorney relationship, what did you learn that could help attorneys?

JJ Velazquez: I was being represented by attorneys I trusted—Bob Gottlieb, Celia Gordon. And Celia told me about touch DNA. She was like, “I just heard this whole thing about touch DNA. I wish we had it in your case, it could have been life-changing for you.” There was a betting slip that the actual shooter had filled out. To her it was like, “Oh wow, I wish we had this” and back to business. To me it was like, “Wait a minute, we need to make that happen.”

I had to teach myself about alleles and epithelial tissues—things that most attorneys don’t even know about. When I tried to bring it to my attorneys, they were like, “Oh that’s touch DNA, it’s junk science.” But I traced it back to its origin in the UK, where they had been using it for over 10 years. I wrote an 11-page research paper and sent it to the feds. I also found that more than 125 people in New York state had been convicted using touch DNA. I said, how can you use it to convict but it’s no good to exonerate?

That memo was from 2016. I didn’t get exonerated until September 30, 2024. And you know what I got exonerated on? That touch DNA that everybody said was not going to be accepted in court.

What I have to say to lawyers is this: people like me, we don’t have any barriers that seem credible. When you’re trying to overturn an unjust conviction, there’s nothing that can stop me. Attorneys look at things different—they’re looking for precedent. But what they don’t realize is that that very work and that energy that you exercise into this new issue, you can be the attorney that creates the precedent. Because precedent doesn’t happen by itself. It happens through force. It happens through support. The only remedy to resistance is persistence.

 

What mindset shift or practice helped you develop the resilience to keep going?

JJ Velazquez: When I was incarcerated, there was a moment where my mother saw through me. I used to go down on a visit with a mask on—not a physical mask, but acting like things are okay when I knew they weren’t. She told me, “You’re losing yourself. And you need to realize that you might be locked up physically but you have control of your mind. And in your mind you can be free.”

I came across this small book by Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning. What I learned was that there’s a common thread amongst Holocaust survivors—their ability to attach themselves to a sense of purpose. That changed me. When I realized that I may not be able to help myself, I may not be able to help my mother and my children, there are people in the vicinity of my environment that I can help. And every time I helped somebody, I felt better about myself. It became like a drug that I chased. Then before you knew it I was creating programs and running college programs in prison. All these positive things were taking place during the worst phases of my life. But they were things that created meaning in my life, gave me a sense of purpose, and helped me survive.

Dan Slepian: Magical is that he was able to deal with his own suffering while helping other people. And in this search for his own meaning, he gave hundreds, now thousands if not tens of thousands of people meaning. Including me. Right at the start of the chain. He gave more to me than I probably gave to him. I wasn’t in the cage for 23 years. And he’s done that for countless people.

 

From Sing Sing to the Supreme Court is quite a journey. What’s the single message you want lawyers to take away?

JJ Velazquez: I think it’s important for people in the legal profession to really challenge themselves to understand how important they are in the change that can be possible. They’re the vanguards of justice. That’s what society is expecting as an attorney. People need to really question themselves and figure out what they would do with their talent, with their law degree, with their privilege. Just think—if everybody who was in this legal profession made it a goal to be an architect of justice in someone else’s life the way Dan was for me. Can you imagine how many lives can be changed? All you have to do is commit one case a year.

Dan Slepian: We’re speaking to attorneys. They signed up for this work. You just keep going until you get the right result. Can’t give up on each other.

 

Takeaway: Just one case a year

JJ Velazquez spent more than two decades proving something he already knew. What he asks of the lawyers who heard him at ClioCon is simpler than the fight he waged: pick one case and don’t let go of it. As he put it backstage, the only remedy to resistance is persistence.

JJ Velazquez and Dan Slepian shared their story at ClioCon 2025. To hear from the legal professionals, innovators, and advocates shaping the future of law, get your tickets to ClioCon 2026 today.