"I AM WRONGLY IMPRISONED FOR 19 YEARS"

Dorothy Gaines, 41, is behind bars with no chance for parole. Yet she says
she's innocent. And the only evidence against her came from convicted
criminals who implicated her to reduce their own jail time.

If you had told me 10 years ago that I would be serving a prison sentence
of more than 19 years for delivering crack and having cocaine in my house,
I would have laughed in your face. At the time, I was a respected nurse
technician at Providence Hospital in Mobile, Alabama, where I lived with my
husband, Terrell, and my three children. I went to church, paid my taxes
and always taught my kids – Natasha, now 26, Chara, 17, and Phillip, 15 –
to abide by the law. I felt like I had finally made it, even though the
road up to that point had been a fairly rough one.

My problems began when I was 15 and met Larry Johnson, who was five years
my senior, Basically, I fell into the wrong arms. We had a brief
relationship and I became pregnant with Natasha. Larry never owned up to
being Natasha's father. I argued with him for years over child support and
took him to family court, but he never gave me any money to help raise her.

Yet even as a young single mother, I never gave up on my dreams. I worked
at a paper plant while studying for my nurse technician's degree. And by
1982, everything seemed to be looking up for me. I had fallen in love with
a wonderful man named Charles, and soon after, Chara and Phillip were born.

But in 1986, tragedy struck again. Out of the blue, Charles had a heart
attack and died at the age of 32. I swore I wouldn't fall in love again
after that – it was too heartbreaking to lose someone I loved. But two
years later, an old family friend, Terrell Hines, moved back to town. He
had been honorably discharged from the Navy and had returned to Mobile to
work as a merchant seaman. After living with Terrell for a year, I
discovered he had become addicted to crack. He had always been responsible,
so when he fell behind in paying the bills, I knew something was wrong and
confronted him. Then I put him in a four-month inpatient rehabilitation
program. He seemed to have beaten his problem, and things got back to normal.

The Nightmare Begins

But on a Saturday morning in August 1993, my life turned upside down. My
children and I were getting ready to go to a family reunion when suddenly,
I saw about 12 police cars and 20 officers in my driveway. All of my
neighbors came outside to look. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

The police, who had a search warrant, came inside and tore up my house.
They told me they were looking for money and drugs. Even though they did
not find anything – no drugs, no money, no beepers, no paraphernalia, no
phone records, no bank records – Terrell and I were arrested.

I soon learned that Larry Johnson, Natasha's father, had lied to
authorities and said I was involved in a Mobile-based drug ring.
Apparently, Larry had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug and gun
charges. In exchange for reduced jail time, he agreed to cooperate with
authorities and then implicated me. He was probably still angry about how
I'd fought so hard for child support.

Specifically, Larry claimed I once delivered three ounces of crack cocaine
to him at work, and that I once stored over a kilogram of powder cocaine at
my house for an acquaintance of Terrell's named Dennis Rowe. Terrell had
been accused of driving Rowe to pick up and deliver drugs. I was shocked –
I had no idea that Rowe was a drug dealer. He was friends with my neighbors
and had always seemed like a regular guy. If the charge about Terrell was
true, I had no knowledge of it. I had never seen any drugs in my home. I
was convinced he was innocent, like me.

Soon afterward, I was appointed an attorney who was completely incompetent.
I asked him to have my case severed from three other defendants who were
facing similiar charges, but he refused. During the trial in 1994, I had
character witnesses – doctors and nurses I worked with who wanted to
testify on my behalf – but my attorney never called them to the stand. He
also didn't mention that Larry's story was inconsistent – or that Larry had
three prior felony convictions.

Even though I had ended things with Terrell in December 1993, he refused to
testify against me when he was subpoenaed, He maintained my innocence and
told authorities he wouldn't lie about me in order to get his own sentence
reduced. In fact, he took the witness stand for me and backed up my
testimony that I had never seen drugs in my house, or knowingly had dealers
there.

Sadly, this didn't help free me, either did the fact that before the trial,
Terrell had overheard some of the other accusers trying to get their
stories straight, This is known as "collusion" and could have led to my
release, but for some reason, when a member of my legal team told the story
to the judge, he wouldn't let the jury hear about it. What the jury did
hear was Larry's false testimony, as well as Rowe's.

Larry's charges against me were complete lie; I have never used drugs; I
have never sold drugs; I have never known of any drugs under my roof. I
knew Larry would have done anything to get a lighter sentence. He even
fingered his own mother as being part of his drug conspiracy, and she was
sent to prison for five years.

Nevertheless, on March 10, 1995, the judge sentenced me to prison on two
counts: conspiracy to distribute crack and powder cocaine, and possession
with intent to distribute. It was crazy. No evidence of drugs had ever been
found; the jury found me guilty based solely on the say-so of witnesses who
knew they could reduce their own sentences by testifying against me.

My new attorney, Lyn Campbell – whom I hired a few months after my trial to
argue my appeal – thinks the jury might have found me guilty because I was
tried with three men who really were. She says it was probably difficult
for the jurors to separate the evidence they were presented with for each
defendant; as a result, they lumped every- thing – and everyone – together
when making verdicts.

Though it's tough to know exactly why the jury found me guilty, one thing
is clear: They didn't know how long my sentence would be, or that there's
no parole in federal prison. One juror later told Sam Hodges, a Mobile
Register reporter who broke my story, that she thought I'd get eight months
to a year.

When the judge sentenced me to 235 months, my three children – who were all
in the courtroom – started screaming. I felt completely numb. I asked my
attorney, "How long is that?" When he said, "19 years, seven months," I
lost it. Even if the judge had wanted to, he couldn't have given me a
lighter sentence. The mandatory minimum sentencing laws – which are harshly
written for drug offenders, particularly people convicted of selling crack
cocaine – do not allow for a judge's discretion. So even though I was a
nonviolent person with no previous criminal record, I was sentenced to a
longer term than even some convicted rapists or murderers.

I was 33, and everything I had worked so hard for all my life was going to
be taken away. my children, my job, my home. I was too shocked to even cry.
After the sentencing, a female marshal came to me in tears. She said that
my son, who was 9 at the time, had run up to the judge after the trial and
cried, "Don't send my mom away – she's all I've got." The marshal said that
was the most upsetting thing she'd ever seen.

Because of the large amount of cocaine I'd been charged with, I was first
sent to a medium security facility in Danbury, Connecticut – far away from
my children. Six months after I arrived, my mother died. Even if prison
officials had allowed me to go to her funeral, I didn't have enough money
to get there. Danbury was scary. Women were there for robbery, car theft,
even murder. I kept to myself and had to stay until I proved, with good
behavior, that I deserved to be put in a minimum security prison.

Fighting For Justice

In May 1995, Lyn Campbell argued my appeal, but the judge refused to grant
me a new trial, Lyn appealed this decision to other judges, but the ruling
was upheld. Next, we appealed to the Supreme Court. When the judges refused
even to hear what happened to me, I was devastated. But I am innocent– and
I was still determined to let everyone know. Lyn told me we had one final
chance. We could submit what is called a habeas corpus appeal, which meant
we could argue that my case was processed unconstitutionally. But again,
the appeals process failed. I became really depressed and started having
heart problems.

On April 1, 1999, I was sent to finish out my sentence at a minimum
security prison in Marianna, Florida, 3 1/2 hours from Mobile, And though
this place isn't high security, it's still prison. There's no privacy, even
to go to the bathroom. I spend my days working on a prison cleaning crew –
all inmates have a job – as well as writing letters and studying in the law
library to learn more about how to plead my case.

When I'm tempted to give up, I think of how wronged I've been by our
judicial system. Larry served just five years of a 15-year sentence and is
already free. Dennis Rowe is in prison but scheduled for release in 2004 –
10 years before me. And Terrell, who also pleaded innocent, has served six
years of a 14-year sentence.

Why did Terrell receive a lighter sentence than I did? Because he was
charged with possessing a lesser amount of crack cocaine. If you ask me,
the people who testified against us randomly made up the quantities. I
mean, the discrepancies didn't make any sense, but then again, nothing
about our trials did. Terrell has appealed his case, but his request was
denied in January 1996. I still believe he's innocent.

The worst part is the effect my imprisonment has had on my children.
Because I was determined that Chara and Phillip not go into foster care,
Natasha dropped out of college to support her younger siblings.

Phillip is struggling the most, though. He went from being on the honor
roll to getting failing grades. He has tried to commit suicide twice and
was arrested recently for petty offenses, like shoplifting. He says he
wants to go to prison so he can be with me.

It breaks my heart to see what has happened to my kids. The last time I saw
them and my grandson, Jeremy, was a year ago. They can't visit more often
because the trip is too expensive and Natasha can't get off from work.
Plus, saying goodbye is so traumatic that in some ways, it's less agonizing
not to go through it at all.

Today, my only remaining hope for freedom is clemency or a pardon, granted
by the president, I have a new lawyer, and I am in the process of writing
to President Clinton, asking him to consider my case. I know this is a long
shot, though. No politician wants to be seen as being soft on drug offenders.

When I think back on how scary this process has been and how I've been
caught up in the system, I sometimes can't believe I'm living in America.

[SIDEBAR]

WHAT YOU CAN DO

- - Write to Roger C. Adams, Pardon Attorney, Office of the Pardon Attorney,
U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. 20530, in support of Dorothy
Gaines' plea for a presidential pardon or clemency.

- - White to your House Representative in Congress to urge support for H.R.
1681, sponsored by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California). This legislation
would do away with all drug-related mandatory minimum sentences in federal
courts, so judges could decide sentencing on a case-by-case basis.

- - Visit The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation's website at
http://www.cjpf.org to sign an online petition against mandatory minimum
sentences.

- - Call Families Against Mandatory Minimums at 202-822-6700, or log on to
the website at http://www.famm.org to join the nationwide campaign.

Note from MAP:

This case was featured on the PBS Frontline documentary Snitch last year. A
transcript is posted at:

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n080/a01.html

See also Dorothy Gaines, Prisoner of War in America at The November
Coalition's Wall at:

http://www.november.org/wall-Dorothy.html

The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation has provided a clemency letter to
President Clinton, which can be accessed, sent or printed online at:

http://www.cjpf.org/gaines.html