WOMAN FREED AFTER 20 YRS. FOR DRUGS

DETROIT - Jimmy Carter was president and disco was king when
JeDonna Young got no mercy from an unforgiving Michigan drug law: life
behind bars and no parole for getting caught with 3 pounds of heroin
she insisted belonged to her boyfriend.

On Friday, just a day after taking her case to the state's parole
board, the 44-year-old mother learned she would be released, making
her the first person freed under changes to the law that allows parole
for lifers after 20 years.

"My client couldn't believe her ears," said her attorney, Stuart
Friedman. "She's had so many false starts over the years.

"Now she's scared it's been 21 years, and the world's changed. She's
going out there and putting together the pieces and restarting her
life. It's going to take a lot to get adjusted to things."

Ms. Young was driving with her boyfriend, James Gulley, in 1978 when
Detroit police stopped her car and found the heroin. Gulley said it
was his; Ms. Young said she didn't know it was there.

Both were convicted under a 1978 law that was intended to put drug
lords in prison for life. Gulley died in prison last year.

An appeals court reluctantly upheld Ms. Young's conviction in 1989 but
said it was unconvinced she was the kind of drug dealer the law was
designed for.

Last year, the state Legislature amended the lifer law to allow parole
after 20 years. The change took effect Oct. 1, allowing convicts to
become eligible after 15 years if they cooperated with police and did
not have prior felony convictions.

At her parole hearing Thursday, Ms. Young, who has a 27-year-old son,
said she hoped for the best.

"Until I actually walk out the door, that's when I'll believe it," she
said. "I pray all the time. That's what got me through it. It's kept
me strong."