Repeal habitual offender statutes.
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Sign the petition to free Tameka Drummer, who was sentenced to life for marijuana possession under Mississippi habitual offender statutes.
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By Nia Norris (she/her)
A petition to free Tameka Drummer has reached almost 300,000 signatures (Change). The Mississippi mother is serving a life sentence. Her crime? Possession of marijuana, stemming from a 2008 incident where her car was searched by police after she was pulled over for a missing license plate. Today, recreational cannabis is legal in nineteen states and the District of Columbia. Medical marijuana is legal in 37 states (Insider). “Tameka has been in prison since she was 34 years old.” She is now 46. “Her youngest child was 4 when she was arrested. In April, her child turned 16.” Unless this petition is successful, Drummer will live out her life in prison because of one time she had marijuana due to two prior convictions on her record and Mississippi’s harsh habitual offender laws (Filter Mag).
Habitual offender laws, often known as “three strikes” laws, appeared in more than half of states during the 1990s. Under these laws, people convicted of two serious crimes face penalties ranging from a quarter century of incarceration to life in prison upon conviction of a third offense, no matter how minor (Equal Justice Initiative). In 2010, a Texas man named Larry Dayries was sentenced to 70 years in prison for stealing a sandwich under Texas’s habitual offender statute. The Whole Foods security guard who reported him posted on Facebook after Dayries’ sentencing: “Don’t mess with Whole Foods… 70 years is what you get when you fuck with us” (Texas Observer).
A group of current and former prosecutors gave another example of how habitual offender laws can work: “An 18-year old high school senior pushes a classmate down to steal his Michael Jordan $150 sneakers -- Strike One; he gets out of jail and shoplifts a jacket from the Bon Marche, pushing aside the clerk as he runs out of the store -- Strike Two; he gets out of jail, straightens out, and nine years later gets in a fight in a bar and intentionally hits someone, breaking his nose -- criminal behavior, to be sure, but hardly the crime of the century, yet it is Strike Three. He is sent to prison for the rest of his life" (ACLU).
Currently in Mississippi, more than half of the incarcerated women who are serving life sentences were convicted for drugs or another nonviolent crime. There are currently over 2,600 individuals serving life sentences under Mississippis’s habitual offender laws (Clarion Ledger). 75 percent of individuals who are sentenced under these laws are Black, although only 38 percent of the population of Mississippi is Black (The Appeal).
Drummer is not the only individual in Mississippi who is serving a life sentence for possession of marijuana, either. In May, the Mississippi Court of Appeals upheld Allen Russell’s 2019 life sentence for possession. The judge explicitly stated that Russell was not being sentenced for the possession, but for habitual offender (Associated Press).
Nationwide, the ACLU has found about a dozen state-level life sentences for marijuana possession, the majority of whom are Black (ACLU), though primarily white men and retailers profit from the legal cannabis industry. Acreage Holdings, one of the most successful cannabis companies, reported revenue of $12.9 million in the first quarter of 2019 (USA Today), while 54 individuals were sentenced by federal judges to life sentences for marijuana between 1996 and 2014 (Prison Insight).
Some state laws are finally changing. California had a similar reputation for excessively harsh sentences through habitual offender legislation and their “three strikes” law, but in 2012 passed Proposition 36 which changed the law to apply the “three strikes” law only in cases where the only in cases where the crime was “serious and violent” (Ballotpedia). Since Proposition 36, over 1000 incarcerated individuals in California have been released from prison. It is also important to note that the recidivism rate of individuals who were “propped out” under California law is significant lower than the state or national average (NAACP).
Missouri also changed their habitual offenders statute and allowed individuals sentenced to more than 30 years in prison to apply for parole after serving 20. Last year, Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Bernette Johnson said that Louisiana's habitual offender law was “largely designed to re-enslave African Americans.” Under a new law, 3,000 incarcerated people in Louisiana might receive parole (The Advocate).
Habitual offender statutes contribute to mass incarceration and must be revised. Allowing white-owned cannabis companies to reap record profits while individuals are still serving life sentences for cannabis is institutional racism that must be addressed.
Key Takeaways
Habitual offender statutes have contributed to the mass incarceration of Black Americans in the United States since their passage during the 1990s.
Mississippi has some of the toughest habitual offender statutes in the United States and has upheld these even recently.
White-owned cannabis companies are raking in millions of dollars while Black Americans continue to serve life sentences for marijuana possession.
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