TCNJ

24 The College of New Jersey Magazine By his third year at Rutgers Law School, Marvin Adames had decided he wanted to clerk for a judge after graduation — a judge who handled civil cases. "I saw a lot of crime," says Adames, who grew up with his mother and younger sister in the Dayton Street projects in Newark's South Ward. "I was accosted by police all the time because I looked like the people who sold drugs, so the one thing I knew I did not want to practice was criminal law." But then came the interview with a judge who had seen his résumé — a judge in the criminal division of Essex County Superior Court who offered him an immediate internship that he hadn't even been looking for. "And what I've done since is only criminal law," he says. The internship led to a clerkship, which led to a job as an assistant prosecutor in the Essex County Prosecutor's Office. "I realized as a prosecutor, I am in a position of great power. I make the initial offer; I can dismiss a case; I can go ahead and be that justice in the courtroom for someone." As a boy, he had thought he might become an artist. An elementary school teacher recognized his talent and steered him toward Arts High School, where he carried his supplies in a tackle box and his artwork in an unwieldy portfolio, and graduated as salutatorian. But it was the power of language that captured him as an EOF student at Trenton State, where he majored in English and started his path in law. Adames, who married a fellow EOF graduate, lawyer Andrea Adames '05, and who is good friends with Lamont Repollet '94, became the chief municipal prosecutor in Newark during the Cory Booker administration and then, in 2012, a municipal court judge. "I tell people, 'Look, if I can do something so that you're not back here again and again, then I'll do it.' I try to have impact on their lives from the bench." MARVIN ADAMES '94 FORTUITOUS CRIMINAL COURT JUDGE

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