Dedicated to reforming the criminal justice system, Barnett’s passion came through Thursday morning (Mar. 24) during PLA’s first Big Ideas session of the conference. “I want the world to know my clients, brilliant men and women, not statistics,†said Barnett of her book Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom. “This book is a love letter to them.â€
Growing up, Barnett was a small-town country girl with big city dreams. “I found a crack pipe in my mama’s purse when I was in the fourth grade,†she said. “I wanted to fix her even as a child.†Ultimately, her mother’s drug addiction led her to prison. “It was devastating for me and my younger sister.†Visiting her mother in prison with plexiglass between, she was struck by smaller lip prints on the glass left by another small visitor, a vision that stays with and drives her forward today.
“Books were my escape; the library was my safe haven.†In fact, she became an accountant because of a book featuring black people who were successful in banking. “I wanted to be a lawyer, but I didn’t know any lawyers.†That changed when she met a lawyer who worked in the same building where Barnett worked as an accountant.
Taking a course during law school, she learned about disparity in the law between the sentences for possession of powder cocaine versus crack cocaine. “Why were we sentencing these two drugs so differently?†said Barnett. “Moral consciousness tells us that powder cocaine is used by those with money and crack by poor black people.†In doing research for a paper she was writing about this discrepancy, she knew that she wanted to show the human element in that paper. “I wrote to Sharanda Jones, a woman incarcerated for the rest of her life for a first-time drug offense. I met her, learned she was a single parent with a quadriplegic mother who happened to make a bad decision when she transported drugs for her friends. Her first offense was a fundamental death sentence.â€
Over the years, Barnett met others in similar situations, first time convictions with life sentences. “It was like watching the same horror movie over and over. I knew I wanted to use my talent to free people, but it was scary to leave my comfortable spot in corporate law. My daddy cracked the future wide open when he said, ‘BK stop worrying about the challenges and imagine the possibilities.’â€
Barack Obama ultimately granted Sharanda clemency. “I invested in Sharanda and now she has a food truck called ‘Fed Up’ and she employs those formally incarcerated. She donates part of her profits to Barnett’s Buried Alive Project which fights to free people buried alive under outdated federal drug laws.
Get more information about Brittany K. Barnett at https://www.brittanykbarnett.com/. â–
