JUDGE TO RECONSIDER LIFE SENTENCE IN WOMAN'S '98 DRUG CONVICTION

Theresa Wilson doesn't plan to drive soon. Too much room for error.

Nor does she plan to let so much as a piece of lint fly out of an open car
window. That, after all, might be seen as littering.

Wilson has seen that laws can be unforgiving.

The East Lake wife and mother of two was sentenced in 1998 to life in
prison without parole for selling a morphine mixture to an undercover
police officer.

She was 30 years old and a first-time drug offender. But a 1996 Alabama law
branded her a "drug baron" and mandated a life behind bars because the
mixture, a prescription drug, weighed more than 56 grams. Public outrage
followed her sentencing and finally, just two weeks ago, the Court of
Criminal Appeals ruled that in Wilson's case, the sentence was cruel and
unusual punishment and ordered a new sentencing hearing.

Wilson, now 34, will stand before Circuit Judge Tommy Nail on Wednesday and
plead for mercy.

"I did wrong but now I just want to be a wife and mother," said she in a
Jefferson County Jail interview this week, her first public statement since
her case made headlines four years ago. "I made a mistake and I have
learned my lesson. Please let me go home."

If she does go home, she will go as a woman markedly changed.

"The Theresa in 1996 was a drug addict who didn't care," Wilson said. "My
mother had passed away and when she left, a part of me died."

She had been damaged long before. Her father was an alcoholic and she was
abused as a child, she said. She dropped out of school after the eighth grade.

"If it would get you high, make you numb and forget about your
surroundings, I did it," she said. "You tend to turn to drugs to blot out
the pain."

She married young and had her first child at age 18, her second at 20. She
drank, smoked pot and became addicted to prescription drugs after being
diagnosed with fibromyalgia at age 23. Two years later, she and her
husband, James, separated after he tried to commit suicide for the 14th
time and set the house on fire, she said.

He was hospitalized in a mental institution and diagnosed with bipolar
disorder. She lost custody of the children to a relative. "When they took
my kids away from me, they took my life," she said.

Her addiction worsened and financial problems mounted. The monthly
disability check barely covered the mortgage, which left her unable to pay
her $95 power bill. A so-called friend helped her find a way, introduced
her to a man. The man turned out to be an undercover cop. Wilson sold him
20 pills of Valium and Fiorinal for $90 and a bottle containing 97.8 grams
of a morphine mixture from a neighbor whose husband had been a cancer
patient. On a secretly recorded tape of that transaction, Wilson said she
didn't know the morphine's street value, but offered to sell it to the
officer for $150. She'd keep $80 for herself and give the neighbor $70.

Only later would she find out that the drug was worth $10,000.

She was arrested Aug. 16, 1996. By January 1997, out of jail on bond, she
and her husband reunited and she had a full time job. He was now a minister
and she said she was at church every time the doors were open.

"I was picking the pieces back up," she said.

Several months later, she was indicted and her bond was revoked. Eventually
it was reinstated, but at $485,000.

She remained jailed awaiting trial and was convicted in March 1998.

"Judge (J. Richmond ) Pearson only did what he had to do. He sat up there
with tears in his eyes," she said. "I was never angry. Just disappointed in
the justice system."

She went to the state's women's prison in May 1998 and had to spend the
first 90 days in isolation a five-by-seven cell with only a toilet, a sink
and unwelcome solitude.

"I cried every day," she said.

Eventually she joined the general population and began to work in the
prison's clothing factory and obtained her GED. Her husband and children
visited every two weeks.

"She's always been hopeful," said attorney Bill Bowen. "We told her most
appeals are lost, but she's been patient. It's been a lesson for me in
patience."

In August 2001, Judge Sue Bell Cobb issued an opinion that called Wilson's
sentence "grossly disproportionate." The Alabama attorney general
unsuccessfully appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. In April, the
Court of Criminal Appeals issued its opinion, which applies only to her case.

"For the first time, I had a full night's sleep," she said. "That's
something very hard to accomplish in prison."

She arrived back in Birmingham from the Wetumpka prison last week to await
the hearing.

"For the first time in five years," she said with tears, "I saw a true
smile on my little girl's face." Wilson said she knows there will be
enormous transition whenever she's released.

"I have a husband out there but we've got to get to know each other all
over again," she said. "I've got wonderful children, but I can't just jump
in and be the mother that I should have been to start with. I've got to
ease back into their lives."

She said she will go to work as a church secretary and eventually wants to
become a drug recovery counselor.

"I want to be somewhere where the only drugs around are those that have
been ingested by the people there," she said. "Drugs repulse me. The
thought of them makes me sick.

"But I know what being a drug addict is like. I know what it can do to you.
I know how degrading it can get. I want to give them hope."

Wilson said she hopes the scrutiny of her case serves as a catalyst for change.

"I know somebody had to be an example to get the law changed," she said.
"I'm just praying something will be done."