Alice Marie Johnson (born May 30, 1955) is an American

criminal justice reform Criminal justice reform addresses structural issues in Criminal justice, criminal justice systems such as racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and recidivism. Criminal justice reform can take place at any poi ...

advocate and former federal prisoner. She was convicted in 1996 for her involvement in a

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

cocaine trafficking Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly used recreationally for its euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South Ameri ...

organization and sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

. In June 2018, after serving 21 years in prison, she was released from the

Federal Correctional Institution, Aliceville The Federal Correctional Institution, Aliceville (FCI Aliceville) is a low security United States federal prison for female inmates in Alabama. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice ...

, after the 45th

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

, exercised executive powers to grant

clemency A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...

, thereby

commuting Commuting is periodically recurring travel between one's place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regul ...

her sentence, effective immediately.

Early life, crime, and sentence

Johnson was born in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

, and her memoirs recount growing up as one of nine children of

sharecropper Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...

s, becoming pregnant as a sophomore in high school, and later working as a secretary. At the time of her arrest, she was a single mother of five children. Johnson told ''Mic'' in 2017 that she had become involved in the drug trade after she had lost her job at

FedEx FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "Fe ...

, where she had worked for ten years, due to a

gambling addiction Problem gambling or ludomania is repetitive gambling behavior despite harm and negative consequences. Problem gambling may be diagnosed as a mental disorder according to ''DSM-5'' if certain diagnostic criteria are met. Pathological gambling is ...

; this was followed by a divorce and the loss of her youngest son in a motorcycle accident. She filed for bankruptcy in 1991, and

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mortg ...

of her house followed. Johnson was arrested in 1993 and convicted in 1996 of eight federal criminal counts relating to her involvement in a

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

-based cocaine trafficking organization. In addition to drug

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...

counts, she was convicted of

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

and

structuring Structuring, also known as smurfing in banking jargon, is the practice of executing financial transactions such as making bank deposits in a specific pattern, calculated to avoid triggering financial institutions to file reports required by law ...

, the latter crime because of her purchase of a house with a down payment structured to avoid hitting a $10,000 reporting threshold. The Memphis operation involved over a dozen individuals. The indictment, which named 16 defendants, described her as a leader in a multi-million dollar cocaine ring, and detailed dozens of drug transactions and deliveries. Evidence presented at trial showed that the Memphis operation was connected to Colombian drug dealers based in Texas. She was sentenced to

life imprisonment without parole Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

in 1997. At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Julia Gibbons said that Johnson was "the quintessential entrepreneur" in an operation that dealt in 2,000 to 3,000 kilograms of cocaine, with a "very significant" impact on the community. Co-defendants Curtis McDonald and Jerlean McNeil were sentenced to life and 19 years in federal prison, respectively. A number of other co-defendants who testified against Johnson received sentences between probation and 10 years. Following her conviction, Johnson acknowledged that she was an intermediary in the drug trafficking organization, but said she did not actually make deals or sell drugs.

Imprisonment

Johnson became a grandmother and great-grandmother while imprisoned. She exhibited good behavior in prison. In a memoir written after her release, she wrote that she served time at the

Federal Medical Center, Carswell The Federal Medical Center, Carswell (FMC Carswell) is a United States federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, Incarceration of women in the United States, for female inmates of all security levels, primarily with special medical and mental health ne ...

, the federal prison hospital in Texas, where she became a certified hospice worker, and was subsequently transferred to FCI Aliceville to be closer to family. In letters supporting her bid for clemency, staff members at FCI Aliceville wrote that Johnson did not commit any disciplinary infractions during her incarceration at FCI Aliceville. Johnson participated in a pilot program, introduced in 2016 by

Deputy Attorney General The Deputy Attorney General (DAG) is the second-highest-ranking official in a department of justice or of law, in various governments of the world. In those governments, the deputy attorney general oversees the day-to-day operation of the departme ...

Sally Yates Sally Quillian Yates (born Sally Caroline Quillian; August 20, 1960) is an American lawyer. From 2010 to 2015, she was United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. In 2015, she was appointed United States Deputy Attorney General b ...

, that provided videoconferencing access to certain female federal prisoners. The program allowed the online publication ''Mic'' to record a video interview with her that went viral and brought her case to public attention. She also used

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

while imprisoned to speak at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

, and other audiences. During her time in prison, she became an ordained minister, and credited her grant of clemency to divine intervention.

Commutation and pardon

A campaign in support of her release was launched by the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

and the website '' Mic''; activists who supported her release argued that the punishment was excessive and an example of disproportionate impacts on

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

. A number of individuals and organizations supported Johnson's bid for clemency, including U.S. Representatives

Steve Cohen Steve, Steven or Stephen Cohen may refer to: Sportspeople * Stephan Cohen (born 1971), French pocket billiards player * Steve Cohen (gymnast) (born 1946), American Olympic gymnast *Steve Cohen (judoka) (born 1955), American judoka and Olympian *Ste ...

Bennie Thompson Bennie Gordon Thompson (born January 28, 1948) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 1993. A member of the Democratic Party, Thompson has been the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security since 2019 and from ...

, and

Marc Veasey Marc Allison Veasey (born January 3, 1971) is an American politician serving as a member of the United States House of Representatives for Texas's 33rd congressional district. From 2005 to 2013, he was a member of the Texas House of Representati ...

, law professors

Marc Morjé Howard Marc Morjé Howard is Professor of Government and Law at Georgetown University. Howard is a noted author and a leading supporter of criminal justice and prison reform. Early life and career Howard grew up in Port Jefferson, New York, the son of ...

and

Shon Hopwood Shon Robert Hopwood (born June 11, 1975) is an American appellate lawyer and professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. Hopwood became well-known as a jailhouse lawyer who served time in prison for bank robbery. While in prison, he st ...

, and ''

Orange is the New Black ''Orange Is the New Black'' (sometimes abbreviated to ''OITNB'') is an American comedy-drama streaming television series created by Jenji Kohan for Netflix. The series is based on Piper Kerman's memoir '' Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Wo ...

'' author

Piper Kerman Piper Eressea Kerman (born September 28, 1969) is an American author. She was indicted in 1998 on charges of felony, felonious money-laundering activities, and sentenced to 15 months' detention in a federal correctional facility, of which she eve ...

. According to her lawyer

Shawn Holley Shawn Katherine Holley is an American defense attorney. Holley attended UCLA and Southwestern University School of Law. She began her career in the Los Angeles public defender's office before being hired by Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. She eventually ...

, the warden supported her release. Johnson's was one of the 16,776 petitions filed in the

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...

's 2014

project. In 2016, she wrote an op-ed for CNN asking for forgiveness and a second chance. Her application was denied just before Obama left office. In 2018,

Kim Kardashian Kimberly Noel Kardashian (formerly West; born October 21, 1980) is an American socialite, media personality, and businesswoman. She first gained media attention as a friend and stylist of Paris Hilton, but received wider notice after the sex ...

and President Donald Trump's son-in-law

Jared Kushner Jared Corey Kushner (born January 10, 1981) is an American businessman and investor. He served as a senior advisor to 45th U.S. president Donald Trump, his father-in-law. Since leaving the White House, Kushner founded Affinity Partners, a pri ...

sought to persuade Trump to grant clemency to Johnson. In late May 2018, Kardashian met with the President in the

Oval Office The Oval Office is the formal working space of the President of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is located in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C. The oval-shaped room ...

to urge him to pardon Johnson. On June 6, 2018, following Kardashian's appeal, Trump commuted Johnson's sentence, and Johnson was released. The commutation was one of a series of acts of clemency made by Trump in a "few high-profile cases brought to him by associates and allies." The ''Washington Post''s ''

Wonkblog Wonkblog was a blog, hosted by the ''Washington Post'', that was dedicated to domestic policy, economics and politics. It was started by Ezra Klein, originally as a solo venture, but, by February 2013, had grown to employ a staff of five people. T ...

'' described the pardon as somewhat surprising given Trump's past statements in favor of executing drug dealers. When Trump delivered his State of the Union address on February 5, 2019, Johnson was a guest of the president. Trump asked her to stand up to be recognized, and she received a standing ovation from members of Congress. On August 28, 2020—one day after Johnson spoke at the

2020 Republican National Convention The 2020 Republican National Convention in which delegates of the United States Republican Party selected the party's nominees for president and vice president in the 2020 United States presidential election, was held from August 24 to 27, 202 ...

—Trump granted her a full pardon.

Memoir and activism

Since her release, Johnson has become an advocate for criminal justice reform in the United States, often invoking her personal experience. The month after her release, in July 2018, she called for an end to

mandatory sentencing Mandatory sentencing requires that offenders serve a predefined term for certain crimes, commonly serious and violent offenses. Judges are bound by law; these sentences are produced through the legislature, not the judicial system. They are inst ...

. In September 2019, she met with Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee to promote greater access to expungement and prisoner education and reduction in barriers to

reentry Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the entr ...

, and to express concerns about the

cash bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countries, ...

system. Johnson also advocates for the inclusion of female voices in the conversation around criminal justice reform. Ahead of

International Women's Day International Women's Day (IWD) is a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8 as a focal point in the women's rights movement, bringing attention to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against wom ...

2019,

UN Women The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women, is a United Nations entity working for gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women advocates for the rights of women and girls, and focu ...

featured her story as part of its "Courage to Question" series. In May 2019, memoirs written by Johnson with

Nancy French Nancy French is an American writer. She is known for co-writing or ghostwriting books with public figures, including Ben Sasse, Sean Lowe, Bob Fu, Alice Marie Johnson, Shawn Johnson, Richard Lui, and Sarah Palin. Since 2016, French has writt ...

, entitled ''After Life: My Journey From Incarceration To Freedom'', were published by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...

, with a foreword written by

. A Kirkus review of the autobiography described the work as "A moving, inspirational story that makes a powerful argument for sentencing reform."

References

External links