![]() The drugs that I was charged for were drugs that were testified to but were never seized. When I was sentenced to life imprisonment, I was shocked. I didn't know anything about the criminal justice system or how conspiracy worked. But they have to label somebody and the one who goes to trial is going to always be labeled because the others are going to take a plea deal. Hell, I feel uncomfortable that I feel uncomfortable. She recently told me she is a post surgery trans woman. She was cute, smart, into a lot of the same things that I am, and the conversations felt so great and natural. ![]() My house was a little bit under $100,000, and I was paying notes on a car. Straight cis male here, started dating an amazing woman. They labeled me as the queenpin, but I didn't have the money they thought I had. I was 39 years old, and I became officially a part of the drug conspiracy arrest. When one of the people who was carrying drugs got busted, he had my phone number. I was grieving, my children were grieving, and I couldn't even pay for his funeral. My son was tragically killed in a scooter accident, and I became a zombie at that point. I felt guilty with what I was doing, but I was happy to just put food on the table and pay my utilities. My parents had to secretly buy a prefabricated home - one of those Jim Walter homes - in Olive Branch and sneak over at night to prepare it.Ĭommunity members in Aliceville, AL came together on Octoat Aliceville First Baptist Church to celebrate Alice Marie Johnson returning to the community five years after her release. Every year when a crop came in, the landowners would tell us there was no money left over, even if it was a good year. I use the word "escape" because that's really what it took for us to get out of it. We escaped the sharecropping lifestyle when I was almost 6 years old. You don't have a choice but to have a strong work ethic when work is part of your life. We picked cotton, so I grew up with a strong work ethic. My parents worked on someone else's place: My father was a sharecropper and worked in the dairy barn, and my mother was an outstanding cook. I was born in Mississippi as one of nine children - eight girls and one boy, with my brother right smack in the middle. The essay has been edited for length and clarity. She was released from prison in 2018 and is now a criminal justice reform advocate. This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Alice Marie Johnson, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 for her involvement in a drug-trafficking organization. ![]() Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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