Joshua B. Hoe interviews Brittany K. Barnett about her book “A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom”
Full Episode:
My Guest: Brittany K. Barnett
Brittany K. Barnett is an award-winning attorney and entrepreneur focused on social impact investing. She is dedicated to transforming the criminal justice system and has helped win the freedom of numerous clients serving life sentences for federal drug offenses. Brittany has founded several nonprofits and social enterprises including the Buried Alive Project, Girls Embracing Mothers, XVI Capital Partners and others. She has been recognized with many honors including being named one of America’s most outstanding young lawyers by the American Bar Association. She is also the author of the book “A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom” which we will be discussing today.
Notes From Episode 108: Brittany K. Barnett
We talked about the recent Supreme Court case Terry v. the United States.
The books Brittany recommended were:
Shaka Senghor, Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison
Brian Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
Alice Marie Johnson: After Life: My Journey from Incarceration to Freedom
and Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Full Transcript:
Josh Hoe
Hello and welcome to Episode 108 of the Decarceration Nation podcast, a podcast about radically reimagining America’s criminal justice system.
I’m Josh Hoe, and among other things, I’m formerly incarcerated; a freelance writer; a criminal justice reform advocate; a policy analyst; and the author of the book Writing Your Own Best Story: Addiction and Living Hope.
Josh Hoe
Today’s episode is my interview with Brittany K. Barnett about her book: “A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom.” Brittany K. Barnett is an award-winning attorney and entrepreneur focused on social impact investing. She is dedicated to transforming the criminal justice system and has helped win the freedom of numerous clients serving life sentences for federal drug offenses. Brittany has founded several nonprofits and social enterprises, including the Buried Alive Project, Girls Embracing Mothers, XVI Capital Partners, and others. She has been recognized with many honors, including being named one of America’s most outstanding young lawyers by the American Bar Association. She is also the author of the book A Knock at Midnight, which we’ll be discussing today. Brittany, welcome to the DecarcerationNation podcast.
Brittany K. Barnett
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Josh Hoe
So great to have you on. I always ask the same first question. It’s kind of a comic book origin story question. How did you get from wherever you started in life to where you were doing all the amazing work that you do? But in a sense, your book is kind of a really incredible, long answer to that question. So instead you can just give a shorter version of the story of where you came from, and what drew you to this work?
Brittany K. Barnett
Absolutely. I grew up in rural East Texas, a very small town, one of those doors wide open, windows unocked rural areas and with a very loving family. I mean, family was very important to us. The love was unconditional. I grew up wanting to be Claire Huxtable from The Cosby Show, and just wanted to be a lawyer just like her, you know. Unfortunately, there aren’t many lawyers in rural East Texas, and there certainly aren’t many lawyers who are black women. And so for some reason, that dream started to seem out of my league, beyond my reach. But I was always pretty studious, you know, even as a child, and played sports, pretty typical childhood, except that my mother, who was a nurse, developed a pretty severe addiction to drugs. And that experience was very devastating for my sister and I, and her addiction ultimately led to her incarceration years later, when I was a young adult. And that situation just brought me very proximate to this issue of mass incarceration and how it impacts and devastates families. And from there [I] always had this dream of becoming a lawyer always in the fringe of my mind, even though it seemed other than at the time, and a dear friend of mine was actually going to law school, and actually seeing him preparing to go to law school, it was one of those like, Now, wait a minute, if he can do it, I know I can do it. And so I shifted gears. I was an accountant at the time, and I shifted gears to go to law school. And definitely the incarceration of my mom really brought me proximate to the issue for sure.
Josh Hoe
And you’ve talked about this a little bit already. But there’s a lot, I think, if you read the book, there’s a lot of, you go through a period of a lot of anger and resentment, and misunderstandings of addiction, and struggling with your mother’s struggles. How would you explain to people the journey you took from being resentful as a younger kid to understanding and embracing what had happened with her as you grew older?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yeah, as you mentioned, as a young kid growing up with a parent who did drugs – it’s really hard to reconcile, and I think a lot of it is not understanding the disease of addiction for one, but also I was born in the mid-80s an 80s baby, I grew up early 90s, the height of the War on Drugs, where in schools, we have the DARE programs, we have the Just Say No, which is insinuating that those of us who do fall victim to addiction are among the weakest links, the morally corrupt of us, and trying to reconcile this with my mom, it was difficult terrain to navigate as a teenager, and also navigating these mixed emotions inside of anger and resentment from what my mother’s drug addiction was doing to our family. Worry, fear, and you mix all that in with just unconditional love that I had and still have from my mother. And as a teenager, for me, all those mixed emotions, oftentimes would come out in the form of anger and resentment the most.
Josh Hoe
Did you feel like there was something that flipped that for you, as you got older and allowed you to come more into understanding?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yeah, I would say when my mom went to prison, actually; I was 22 years old when my mother went to prison. And she became sober in prison. And really thinking through the talks that we would have during prison visitations, like it was one of the first times in our life that we had been open and honest, about her addiction and how it impacted her and my sister and I. And so understanding the disease, it definitely shifted for me and thinking through – there were times where my mother would have me hold her check from work as a nurse, and I was in middle school, and by the end of the weekend, she would have come and gotten all the money that she had me holding for her and spent it on drugs. And, knowing about the disease of it all, and just thinking back, like who in their right mind would one, have a 12-year-old hold their check, and two, spend their entire check from two weeks of work in one weekend? And just knowing there has to be more to it than just that. And, like I said, I love my mama, and that really allowed me to be in a space with an open heart and mind to really try to understand addiction, and it doesn’t excuse any of her behaviors, it doesn’t let her off the hook for how her behavior manifested, [how] her addiction manifested in her life [and] in ours, but it does give just a more holistic approach to the healing.
Josh Hoe
Absolutely. And one of the things that I think is really powerful in the book is some of the struggles that families face when they have an incarcerated loved one. You referenced at times, you were afraid of being turned away when you tried to visit your mom in prison and about your sister being denied entry when you went to visit, which a lot of times took a lot of travel time. I know families who have driven across the state or even across multiple states for visits only to be turned away. Are there humiliations built into visits as well, especially for women? Can you talk about your experiences with visitation?
Brittany K. Barnett
Oh, yes, it is true, what they say, when one person goes to prison [it] is like the entire family goes to prison. And prison was a foreign place for us. Not that I didn’t have family members in prison, because I did. Throughout my life, I would have uncles. incarcerated cousins, but it’s different. When it’s your mama, you know, it’s like a primal wound. And, I mean, there were times we would travel three and a half hours to visit her, there and back. So we’re looking at a seven-hour round trip. And our visits were limited to two hours here in Texas. And there was an occasion where my sister left her ID in Dallas. And so we drove all that way. We’re always highly anticipating these visits that we try to get once a month, and my sister’s around 19 at the time, or 20; she left her ID and could not go to visit our mom. That was very devastating for all of us, especially my sister who was, you know, so tough and doesn’t show a lot of emotion at all. And I mean, seeing her cry that day. It was tough. And then my mom and I are going through the motions of the visit, as best as we can, but both of us are heartbroken knowing that my sister’s right outside, and she can’t come in. And as adults, it’s hard even for me, it was hard to even hear my mother, as a grown woman, have to ask a guard if she could go to the restroom during a visit. And a couple of times she was told no, the visit is over in 30 minutes. No, you can’t go now, and I’m like, What in the world is this?
Josh Hoe
And she probably got searched as she went in and she went out every time too.
Brittany K. Barnett
Absolutely, absolutely. So it’s definitely an ordeal.
Josh Hoe
And how do you think we can do a better job of helping the media and the public understand the subtle cruelties built into these largely dark and secret but publicly-owned spaces?
Brittany K. Barnett
Definitely sharing the stories more. I think that really showing the human element of these issues is necessary but it’s often ignored, but it’s crucial to drive impactful change; we have to raise more awareness and do it through directly impacted people who have experienced it themselves, and it’s definitely something that needs a wider lens on, as we talk about the space of criminal justice reform, just prison conditions themselves is a big part of that as well. Or it should be.
Josh Hoe
You talked just a little while ago about when you were in high school and kind of losing the dream of becoming Claire Huxtable because you didn’t know any lawyers, not a single one. Many of the people who listen to this podcast may also feel like their big dreams are sometimes beyond their grasp for lots of reasons. How can we create more visibility for people like yourself, who could be someone that young women of color could look up to in places like small-town Texas?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yeah, I mean, just like you’re doing, having me on your podcast, allowing women of color to hold a microphone and have their voices amplified, not just so that we can be seen for our own reasons, but it’s bigger than us. You know, I truly feel if I had known lawyers who look like me, I wouldn’t have felt that becoming a lawyer was out of my reach. And it took for me to read a book in high school, it was a Bebe Moore Campbell book called Brothers and Sisters. And the protagonist in the book was a black woman who worked at a bank. And she and her friends who worked at the bank seem to have really successful careers. And I was like, Oh, well, I’m good at math, I love numbers. So I’m going to work at a bank. And that’s why I went to college and majored in finance and accounting. And I became a Certified Public Accountant based on that book. And just to think, how important that is. And so, even for my book, A Knock at Midnight, I wrote it for several reasons. But one of the reasons was for young girls of color from the south, to hopefully be able to read my book and see themselves in me, and be encouraged to dream their biggest dreams, and know that they can accomplish anything.
Josh Hoe
So many girls and women get caught up in our criminal justice system because they end up in abusive or exploitative relationships. You were very brave to talk so openly about your relationship with Red in the book. I think people get trapped in binaries, like offender and victim and user and dealer, that we often ignore the circumstances that lead people to get in trouble in the first place. How can we move particularly with women, how can we move beyond these socially constructed narratives about good and evil and start meeting people’s problems where they’re happening better, instead of rewarding their struggles with incarceration?
Brittany K. Barnett
That’s a great question. And we can move beyond it, I feel. I just go back to the heartbeat, the human element of it all. And I think we have so many people in power in the criminal legal system itself, you know, just to start there, who many of them don’t have this lived experience. My upbringing was challenging, it was difficult, but it was also balanced with a lot of love and a lot of happiness because joy and pain can coexist, whether people want to believe that or not, but having more diversity and positions to be able to assist and help, more diversity, meaning people with lived experience, who can understand the socially constructed narratives that are there to be able to start to disrupt them and dismantle them and move beyond them. For me in the work that I do, I get it. I really get it, when I don’t condone Ray’s behavior in our relationship, the domestic violence, none of that at all, absolutely not! Yet, there’s a part of me that is able to process the environment Red grew up in, and how do we go from there, as you mentioned, how do we move beyond that? And it’s just having more role models in these communities and in positions to be able to help not just lead the conversations, but actually lead in the action of what needs to be done.
Josh Hoe
Yeah. And it seems like we have a lot of women who end up in the criminal justice system, because they were in an abusive relationship. And then the public or the judge, or the court only sees them for the crime committed and not for what led them to the crime. Is telling stories the way we break that down? Are there other things we can do to at least start getting the courts and judges to understand that these are more problematic situations than just you committed a crime; prison is the right answer?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yeah, no, it definitely takes more than just sharing stories. But I do believe that narrative storytelling component is a huge part of that shift to be able to shift the paradigm and change the narrative as to what these judges and lawyers even think about the women before them. Seeing the impact of trauma through real people and real stories is much better than having training by some people that have never lived it, you know, or being able to see a person in front of you, and understand how they got there. And in most courtrooms, we’re not looking at the how, we’re looking at the right now and in the present, and in the future, prison, or whatever type of punishment is there. But I think we need more holistic measures, and more holistic measures that actually understand trauma itself and how oftentimes trauma, underlying trauma, is what leads to current situations, including women who are often caught up in situations with boyfriends or husbands or what have you and find themselves at the short end of the stick.
Josh Hoe
So you’re in college at SMU, and an old friend gets you to start looking at a case. And you start writing a paper, you write about someone you knew named Keyon, about a case you found involving someone named Clarence, and then about Sharanda Jones. And not too long after this, you are representing them and a bunch of other people too. This must have been a heck of a paper that you’re writing. And a heck of a writing experience. How did you get from where you were just starting to dig into this idea, to where you became not just an advocate, but actually a representative for a lot of these folks?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yeah, I took a critical race theory course in law school, and in that course, we were analyzing the intersection between race and the law, and I was writing my paper on this 100:1 sentencing disparity between powder cocaine and crack cocaine, and how it was implemented as a part of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, along with mandatory minimums, among other things. But this 100:1 ratio between powder and crack cocaine is where one person could have 500 grams of powder cocaine, I could have only five grams of crack cocaine. And we’re gonna get the same sentence in prison. It is not lost on anyone. Now, and especially in the late 80s, more affluent white people were using powder cocaine, and crack cocaine was running rampant through communities of color. And this 100:1 sentencing disparity led to a disproportionate number of people of color in federal prison for drugs, to where even today, nearly 70% of people in federal prison for drug cases are people of color. And in this course, I wanted again to show the heartbeat. You know, I’m really big on this human element, on the stories. And I knew I was going to talk about my friend Keyon Mitchell. Keyon grew up in rural East Texas like me, and at 23, he had been arrested on a federal drug conspiracy, one count, and sentenced to life in prison [at] 23 years old for selling drugs. Now, we knew Keyon was probably selling drugs. I don’t think that’s debatable, but it was, how does he get life? We knew he wasn’t selling life without parole sentences worth of drugs. And so I wanted to write this paper to learn more about the laws and how Keyon had gotten there. But I wanted to talk about more than just Keyon. I wanted to include a woman because now my mother had gone to prison. My eyes had been opened to this issue of women incarcerated and I literally did a Google search one night in the SMU Law Library. And I came across the case of Sharanda Jones. And she was a black woman from the rural south like me, except that she was serving her 10th year of a life without parole sentence for federal drug conspiracy. And I was in my second year of law school at SMU, you know, and it was just something about her case that tugged at my soul, and I wanted to do whatever I could to help her.
Josh Hoe
That makes a lot of sense. And I think Sharanda is really kind of at the heart of the book. And her story is heartbreaking for most of the book, but probably the most devastating part of the story to me was reading what happened to her mom, who was paralyzed. Can you talk more about her part in the story?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yes, it’s so devastating. Sharanda was part of a larger drug conspiracy case, federal drug conspiracy case, where dozens of people had been arrested in our hometown of Terrell, Texas. And many of them began to cooperate in exchange for lesser sentences and because of this Sharanda and all of her family members, brother and sister, and stepdad, were indicted on a federal indictment, and the irony of it is, her mother was quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. She had been quadriplegic since the 70s since Rhonda was like three years old. She had a tragic car accident. And to me, the fact that her mother received 16 years in prison as a quadriplegic was devastating. But it really was a testament of a mother who refused to cooperate against her children. And unfortunately, she paid a stiff penalty for that; Rhonda and her mother were incarcerated together at Carswell Federal Prison, and Sharanda, her life revolved around her mother, taking care of her mother, as she had done all of her life, and sadly, her mother passed away in prison from a staph infection.
Josh Hoe
I just can’t even imagine the prosecutor who thinks leveraging a mother against her daughter who is a quadriplegic is somehow justice. It just boggled my mind; it was almost impossible for me to read that part of the book. And I think that everybody assumes that everyone who is in prison for drugs must have done something terrible. But in terms of Qian, you wrote drugs were never found on Qian or even in his vicinity. Nor was any physical evidence presented at trial. There were no large sums of money, no controlled buys, no surveillance of any kind to implicate him. The entire prosecution was based on the testimony of the six guys Keyo knew from the neighborhood, all of whom had extensive arrest records to their names. One of the villains of this book is our drug laws if I could put it that way. But can you talk about ghost drugs, the whole notion of ghost drugs as a villain in this book?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yes. So there’s this concept of ghost dope on the federal level, where, if you’re a part of this federal drug conspiracy, you can be held accountable for what they call the “relevant conduct” of everyone who’s a part of this drug conspiracy. And it’s so mind-boggling to me. I’ve represented dozens of people, and I could probably count five, who actually were caught with drugs, caught on surveillance, you know, where there is concrete evidence. And I say that, because they all get caught up in this federal drug conspiracy. And when I started learning and researching further, you know, I just discovered how broad the federal drug laws were, especially as it relates to drug conspiracy. But when I think of drug conspiracy, I think of international drug cartels, right, like very large trafficking organizations. But in reality, Federal Drug conspiracy has three elements: an agreement to traffic drugs, between two or more people who join the agreement voluntarily. There doesn’t need to be any proof, you know, that Sharanda or Keyon knew all the details of the conspiracy, or that they even knew all the people involved, and it is a tool that the federal government uses that to me has been used in a way that’s criminal in and of itself.
Josh Hoe
Earlier, you mentioned that this all started for you in a lot of ways with a class on critical race theory. I studied critical race theory in the 80s and found it very helpful to my understanding of law and society. But there’s obviously a very big current hubbub about CRT, and a bunch of new laws being passed, to prevent it being taught in public schools. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on what’s going on right now?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yes, I just think that the fact that there is so much discussion and actions being taken to ban critical race theory, it really shows why we need it. It shows to me that people really don’t even understand what critical race theory truly is at its core. And it’s very unfortunate, because the critical race theory course that I took at SMU Dedman School of Law changed my entire life, and is what really got me into this work. And so I really, I’m very disappointed in what’s happening surrounding critical race theory right now.
Josh Hoe
There was a Supreme Court decision today that came out, Terry versus the United States, where a petitioner asked for his low-level drug offense sentence to be reduced under the First Step Act because the First Step Act had allowed for far more serious drug crimes to be retroactively considered. The court held that the text of the law did not justify the reduction, even though people from the committee testified in amicus that that was the intent of what they were doing. Do you think that this weird commitment that the Supreme Court and other courts have had to this textualism has ripped some of the heart out of justice in this country?
Brittany K. Barnett
Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt, and I think it’s ripping more of the crumbs left of a heart that has already been ripped out, that the criminal system to me is flawed in its design. And what we saw today with the SCOTUS decision, in Terry, it’s horrible, it’s horrible. And looking back at it, and trying to conceptualize it, especially in light of what we were just talking about with critical race theory, is definitely something that makes it hard, very challenging to do this work, because it’s almost as if we’re taking six steps forward to say, eight back, it’s a hamster wheel that’s exhausting. And the sad part about it is, human lives are at stake.
Josh Hoe
You talk about being at home one night, thinking about how, with just a little different luck, these laws could have all been applied to you. So was that part of what moved you from starting to work with some folks to actually making this the focus of what you did?
Brittany K. Barnett
I think it was a mixture of that, and actually learning and educating myself about these laws and how they were implemented and how they were impacting people. You know, as I mentioned, I grew up in the 80s, and 80s baby, and I grew up in an environment where, unfortunately, some form of involvement in drugs was the norm; you either knew someone selling drugs, or you knew someone using drugs. And for whatever reason, we didn’t think much about it growing up, and I dated a drug dealer in high school. And I honestly can say, I never thought much about it; I didn’t know any inner workings of the drug game and what he was doing or things like that, but I’ve been around the drugs, I hung out with people who have been around the drugs all their lives, and just to learn what I learned about drug conspiracy, and to see how closely, my life tracked with Sharanda’s and how my life could have turned out so different, as it relates to even myself being charged with federal drug conspiracy, giving how broad the law is, it definitely moves something within me, and I fought for Sharanda Jones’s life as if it were my own because it truly was, you know?
Josh Hoe
I think a lot of people reading the book will wonder how – I mean because, through a lot of the book, you’ve just become, you went to law school, which is a lot of work, then you became a finance and banking attorney, in pretty high profile firms. How are you able to keep up with all the new work as one kind of attorney or one kind of law student, while also dealing with this growing list of criminal cases? It seems that as someone who works quite a bit, I still don’t have my head fully wrapped around how you were able to do all these things at the same time. 2
Brittany K. Barnett
I don’t either. It’s kind of one of those things that if I stop and thought about it, Josh, like all the balls would have fallen.
Josh Hoe
That actually makes a lot of sense.
Brittany K. Barnett
There’s a story that sticks out to me I talked about in the book, and it’s with my grandpa, how we used to go fishing, and he gave me these words of advice and wisdom, or he’d just say these things that, for whatever reason, stuck with me. One of them was when I was in elementary school, and I wanted money for making A’s on my report card because my friend had gotten money from making A’s on her report card. And my grandfather told me no, he wasn’t gonna give me any money. And as heartbreaking as it was for me because my grandparents never tell me no, I think he was trying to teach me a bigger lesson. And he just said, No, I’m not gonna reward you for doing what you’re supposed to do; go to school, get good grades is what you’re supposed to do. And, you know, right, wrong or indifferent, that stuck with me. And I feel that doing the corporate work by day and working to free people at night is just what I was supposed to do.
Josh Hoe
So somewhere along the line, as you’re struggling to find some way to help all these folks, you tripped across clemency as a possible solution. And this was after President Obama announced his clemency initiative, or was it before?
Brittany K. Barnett
It was before.
Josh Hoe
And so how did you get into the kind of clemency end of this work?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yeah, I like to say I was doing clemency long before clemency was cool. I really got obsessed with Sharanda’s case, and I wanted to get her free. But the more I dug into her case and dug into the law, the more I realized there was absolutely no avenue of relief for Sharanda Jones through the court. And that the only way she would get out of prison would be through executive clemency from the President. And the only way I even knew about that was from a woman who I knew all my life. She was friends with my dad growing up, and she had been sentenced to life in 1994-95 for drugs, and she was 22 years old at the time; she was the girlfriend of someone who was selling drugs. And she received clemency from President Bill Clinton. And that’s the only way I even knew what clemency was, you know. And fortunately, she put me in contact with her lawyer who would help with our clemency, Sam Sheldon, and he took my hand, really taught me about the clemency process and gave me guidance on how to prepare the petitions and really just wanted me to focus more on the human aspect of the petition. And that’s really how I stumbled across it.
Josh Hoe
And to cut to the chase and make a long story short, you probably have one of the most incredible records as an attorney with commutations I’ve ever heard of. How many successful commutations have you been a part of so far?
Brittany K. Barnett
Eleven across two administrations.
Josh Hoe
Eleven, wow. And you attribute that mostly to starting from the human side of things, that we think differently?
Brittany K. Barnett
Absolutely, without a doubt.
Josh Hoe
And can you imagine, can you remember the very first time you heard that one of your petitions had been accepted? What was that like?
Brittany K. Barnett
Oh, yes, I’ll never forget it. I had filed clemency petitions for Sharanda Jones and another client, Donald Clark, at the same time, November of 2013. And Donald Clark had received a 35-year sentence for drugs; he had never been in any trouble before. He was just an amazing person. And we filed a petition, I waited and I waited, you know, and it wasn’t until March 2015 that I got the call from the Office of the Pardon Attorney telling me that President Barack Obama had commuted Mr. Clark’s sentence and that he will be going home. And you know, words can never begin to touch the joy and just pure elation of hearing that, of course, but also being able to relay that message to Mr. Clark. It is a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing for sure.
Josh Hoe
And also with another one of your clients, Mike, you made a motion for a sentence reconsideration that was successful, or at least I think most people would have thought it was successful because the judge reduced it to four years. But you had a conversation with Mike, and you ended up pushing for the judge to reconsider and reduce his sentence even after getting that decision. Somehow that worked out. But can you explain what happened here? And why you went that direction?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yes. So Mike was Donald Clark’s co-defendant, and he had received a life sentence. Life, for those who may not know, life in federal prison is life, there’s absolutely no parole in federal prison. And so to put this all in context of what we’ve been talking about, with Sharanda Jones and Michael Wilson that I’m about to explain, they were serving the same amount of time in prison as the Unabomber. And Mike was on his 22nd year of incarceration. And I filed a motion to the court under the Drugs Minus Two guideline amendment. And the judge reduced his sentence to 30 years, leaving him with about four years left to serve with good time. And I was overjoyed. You know, I’m like, he’s not gonna die in prison. He’s getting his life back. His family was so happy, everyone was so happy. And I remember telling Mike, you know, that we gave the life sentence back. And he was, I could tell he was grateful and happy. But it wasn’t the elation I was thinking I would get after telling him that he wasn’t gonna die in prison anymore. Mike thought he was gonna get immediate release. And, you know, I’m like, Oh, you know, Mike, this is great. You know, we got life off, you only have four more years to do. And he was grateful. He thanked me. And we hung up. And I sat in my office – I was working in mergers and acquisitions and corporate law at the time – and I sat there, and I thought, I just worked so hard, to get this life sentence off. And he didn’t sound as excited as I’d hoped. But then I thought about who am I to say that four years in prison is something that Mike can just do? I’ve never been to prison before. I wouldn’t want to go serve the four years for him.
Josh Hoe
Yeah, I only served three years. And that was plenty for me.
Brittany K. Barnett
And so I’m like, Who am I? Let me see what else can be done. And I learned that really all I could do was file a motion for reconsideration, which is basically asking the judge to reconsider a decision he just made.
Josh Hoe
And [it] was I think, most people would have thought, was a positive decision.
Brittany K. Barnett
Yeah, yeah. Like why would you go back for that? But I did and I asked the judge to please reconsider and explained how long he had been in prison. I mean, two decades; he had a stroke in prison. He was in Victorville, California, his family’s in Dallas, and hadn’t seen him in years. His co-defendant had gotten clemency from President Obama. I fought it and I waited. And two weeks later, the motion was granted; immediate release.
Josh Hoe
It’s amazing. And I’m still shocked the judge went along with it. That’s pretty amazing. One of the things about that story is the way it ended well, but there was also, you know, one of the real casual cruelties I was talking about earlier, is what happened when they released Mike, you all didn’t even know where he was, right?
Brittany K. Barnett
No, because it was an immediate release order. And so the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the BOP, they couldn’t keep him another night, or it would be unlawful confinement. And they let him out immediately. And he had had a stroke. And so he had lost his ability to write and read clearly. And they let him out. And he was put on a bus to travel almost two days, it would have taken him to get to Dallas. And we were so concerned because he had also had his speech impaired because of the stroke. And so he had a pretty strong stutter at the time. And it was just a whirlwind of what do we do? He’s been in prison 22 years, you let him out in the middle of nowhere, he doesn’t have a phone, things are moving fast. He can’t read, you know, and it was a lot. You know, his mom was up in arms, we were just really worried. And luckily, when Mike got to the first bus stop, he asked someone if he could use their cell phone, and this kind stranger agreed, and Mike called his mom. And from there, you know, we were able to spring into action, find a friend who lived a couple of hours from where he was who was able to go get him, put him up in a hotel, and we were able to fly him to Dallas the next morning. But it was quite a day, I can say. Yeah, we want him free. But what made you think this was okay?
Josh Hoe
I think that happens a lot more than people realize; things like that.
You end up taking a pretty big risk. At some point, you’re doing really well in business law work. And then you decide to just follow your passion and go to representing folks in criminal law full-time; that must have been a really tough decision. Do you have any advice for people who might be listening, who also are in a similar situation and thinking about maybe following their passion?
Brittany K. Barnett
It was a very tough decision. One because I really loved my corporate job, I loved what I did, I was probably what they would call a former deal junkie; we closed some really big exciting deals, we worked a lot. But I also felt an obligation to be that black woman in the boardrooms with the C-suite, with the CEOs, and the CFOs. And be a part of this decision-making process and just be able to blaze the trail for other women of color, like those who came before me, did for me. And so it was quite a struggle to really make the decision of following my passion or not. And then, of course, you throw in the financial security; I would be remiss to say, I didn’t make a lot of money, because I did, and I was going to be leaving all of that behind. And I remember having a conversation with my dad about my decision, what I was going to do, and he said, Brittany, stop worrying about the challenges and imagine the possibilities instead, and I resigned. And that’s the advice I would give others, to imagine the possibilities. And I would also give practical advice, as well, because I think, for me, I had done this work for so long. It was time, it was time. And I also wasn’t a fool Josh; I waited until I got my year-end bonus. And then I put in my notice, so I could have some type of cushion because I was resigning with nothing in front of me. I had nothing lined up at all. I didn’t know what I was gonna be doing.
Josh Hoe
Well, I think a lot of people are glad you did. Let’s talk a little bit more because you talk about getting clemencies under multiple presidencies. At one point in the book, you mentioned that there was the promise of the Obama clemency initiative to get as many as 10,000 people out. I think it was only like – a much, much lower number got out – it was like 1800. What are your thoughts about this initiative in retrospect?
Brittany K. Barnett
You know, I think the Obama clemency initiative was historic; for me, I’m very blessed to have lived that part of history and to have been even able to witness that part of his legacy. At the same time, you know, 1000s and 1000s of people who were just as deserving of their freedom as those who were left behind. And that was very disappointing. I think in hindsight, it was a massive, massive undertaking that definitely should have been implemented much earlier in President Obama’s administration and term. And there was a lot to learn from that experience of such a massive undertaking. I still feel even with that, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that it was an amazing initiative. He granted more clemencies than any modern day president combined, and many people are free because of it.
Josh Hoe
That’s definitely true.
And then during the Trump years – the reason we know each other is because you were part of getting Alice Marie Johnson out. Do you have any reflections on the Trump approach to commutations?
Brittany K. Barnett
You know, I think, for one, the Constitution gives the President of the United States exclusive and sole authority to grant executive clemency. And I think each president does it their way, you know, however, that way is. And I think under the Trump administration, it was done a lot differently. And that was the power that was granted to him under the Constitution. And I think that we definitely should just use all those experiences with clemency that we have and we saw to come up with a much more robust, efficient approach. I do definitely feel there needs to be some transformation in the clemency process and that, for sure, we can, should be able to learn from some of the things that happened during the Trump administration to be able to try to enhance the process and be able to grant clemency much more vigorously.
Josh Hoe
Well, since you brought that up, if you were able to sit down with President Biden or Merrick Garland or whoever – I know we’re both friends of Mark Osler – what would you say to them about how the clemency process should change? Or how can we have a better process for clemency?
Brittany K. Barnett
I wholeheartedly agree with Mark Osler, my friend Rachel Barkow, you know, they definitely have mastered this research on how to do it. And the number one thing is removing the clemency process completely out of the Department of Justice. I wholeheartedly agree with that. And I think we just need to have a much more holistic approach, you know, without six or seven layers of review from the very department that put people in prison to begin with, which to me is just a huge conflict of interest.
Josh Hoe
Absolutely. You’ve also done a lot of work in concert with or in relation to Kim Kardashian. Some people have been pretty hard on her work; I for one have always been glad she’s lending her voice to help people inside. The way I always put it is, she could be sitting on the beach. And instead she’s lending her celebrity to try to change lives, but I don’t personally know her; do you know her? What should people know about the work she’s doing?
Brittany K. Barnett
Yeah, I think it’s great. You know, she’s using her platform in a way that’s raising a lot of awareness for issues that have long existed to people who wouldn’t know otherwise without her platform. And so, I think it’s great. One thing that I learned working with her is that she really is truly dedicated to the issue. She is not just lending her platform, but she’s really taking her time to learn, and to truly understand the injustice. When we worked on Alice Johnson’s case, it’s already appalling enough that Alice is serving life without parole, you know, but Kim didn’t stop there. She wanted to learn how the laws work that even allowed this to happen. And so I think I’m willing to link arms with anyone who values and believes in freedom, and her platform definitely was welcome.
Josh Hoe
If you had the power to change anything you wanted, how would our criminal justice system look different after you’re done?
Brittany K. Barnett
First, big picture, like I mentioned before, the criminal legal system is flawed in its design. And I’m not a big reformist; I think when we’re reforming things, we’re just tinkering with a broken system. I feel we have to completely transform this system. And to do that we have to reimagine what justice looks like. There has to be a fundamental shift in what we think about justice. So that would be my big picture on how the system would look different. We would just completely reimagine what it looks like. This country spends $80 billion a year on incarceration. And that’s just what we can quantify; that doesn’t even include the amount family members are spending on collect calls and commissary and gas to travel hundreds of miles. So prison, that’s just what we can quantify. And I think about how the justice system will look different to me if we were reallocating those funds to education, to healthcare, to mental health, to even giving grants to justice-impacted entrepreneurs, to really look at this holistically. I’ve helped free a lot of people, a lot of people, and I realized we can’t keep rescuing people from prison and restoring them to poverty. I’m holding a vision now . . .
Josh Hoe
That’s a powerful way of putting that.
Brittany K. Barnett
Thank you, thank you. It really makes me think you know, especially writing the book, it gave me a chance to really reflect, and I’m just holding this vision now of how do we create sustainable liberation for people? How do we provide economic liberation equity? How do we put people in positions to thrive and not merely survive? And so, you know, those are some things I’m contemplating as we look through this lens of transformation.
Josh Hoe
This year, I’m asking people if there are any criminal justice related books they might recommend to others. Do you have any favorites?
Brittany K. Barnett
Shaka Senghor’s Writing My Wrongs; I’ve read that a few times. Of course, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Alice Johnson’s book is really great. You know, she’s a remarkable, remarkable woman, for sure. And The New Jim Crow, [by Michelle Alexander]; I can’t keep that out.
Josh Hoe
My conversations tend to be pretty serious. What is something that people might not know about you that’s fun? Do you have any non-criminal justice-related hobbies?
Brittany K. Barnett
People probably don’t know that I do a lot more than criminal justice work.
I’m an entrepreneur at heart. And yeah, I think people, it’s hard too, because I get pushed into this criminal justice corner a lot. And I like to be multi-dimensional. And so I do a lot of investing too; of course, my investing is mostly in formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs, but you know, I really have a passion for tech, and I’ve really been obsessed the past several months with venture capital, and how to really tap into that space, to move capital to ultra-marginalized people. And, yeah I’m pretty multi-dimensional, for sure. I’m always pondering my highest and best use as a human being on earth. And I am just always looking for ways to really merge my corporate experience with my passion to transform the system and do it in a way where people can be able to thrive. I honestly don’t feel we can nonprofit ourselves to a better and just society, we have to have economic liberation. And so I work on several things on that level as well.
Josh Hoe
I always ask the same last question. What did I mess up? What question should I have asked, but did not?
Brittany K. Barnett
You did a remarkable job.
Josh Hoe
Thank you. I always like to ask in case there’s something that you wanted to talk about that I didn’t get to.
Brittany K. Barnett
No, I was able to touch on it all, and I’m so glad you brought up the SCOTUS decision from today.
Josh Hoe
Yeah, I was just reading it right before our interview. So thanks so much for doing this, knowing how busy you are. I really appreciate you taking the time. Is there a particular place you would like for people to find your book?
Brittany K. Barnett
It’s sold everywhere. Amazon, I would say Amazon, because they chose it as the number one book of 2020.
Josh Hoe
Oh, congratulations, I didn’t even know that; given how many books they sell, that’s a pretty big statement.
Brittany K. Barnett
I’m very, very grateful. I’m very, very grateful.
Josh Hoe
Well, thanks again for taking the time to talk with me and for writing the book.
Brittany K. Barnett
Thank you so much. I’m glad we could make this happen.
Josh Hoe
And now my take.
This week, Tom Cotton, one of the Senators from Arkansas, suggested that instead of addressing the crack versus cocaine disparity, as has been suggested in the Senate by dialing back the disparity, we should increase penalties for cocaine, enough to match the penalties for crack. You have got to be kidding. You cannot address 30 years of racist disparity by creating new mandatory minimums for white folks decades after the fact; that is inane. The whole reason that disparity exists is because crack was considered a street drug and cocaine was considered a suburbs drug. It was a white-black disparity. His premise is that black and brown people who were thrown into jail in the 80s and 90s for decades, based on a racist disparity, while white folks went home for that, for being sentenced for the same amount of drugs, should stay in prison. I mean, that is offensive and should be opposed by every thinking and caring human being. Just the idea that the people stuck for 30 years in prison deserve to be in cages forever, and be forever marked by criminality is really problematic. But he makes it worse by first suggesting that we address the racism by ignoring that hundreds of 1000s of white people went home for decades, when they were sentenced for the same weight that found black and brown people, that find black and brown people still incarcerated. This should not be okay.
Second, suggesting that new mandatory minimums would be a good idea, making even more people do more excessive time is just as offensive and wrong as it gets. And every single person in the United States, and certainly every person in the United States Senate should say a loud no.
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