at Tutwiler where women could be beaten or sexually assaulted. EJI had asked the Department of Corrections to install security cameras in the dorms, but they refused. The culture of sexual violence was so pervasive that even the prison chaplain was sexually assaulting women when they came to the chapel.
Shortly after Marsha arrived at Tutwiler, we won the release of Diane Jones, who had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to die in prison for a crime she had not committed. Diane had been wrongly implicated in a drug-trafficking operation that involved her former boyfriend. She was convicted of multiple charges that triggered a sentence of mandatory life imprisonment without parole. We challenged her conviction and sentence and ultimately won her release. The release of Diane Jones, a condemned lifer, gave hope to all of the other lifers at Tutwiler. I received letters from women I’d never met thanking me for helping her. While working on her case, I’d go to Tutwiler to meet with Diane, who would tell me how the women were desperate for help.
“Bryan, I have about nine notes people want me to pass to you. It was too many to get past the guards so I didn’t bring them, but these women want your help.”
“Well, don’t try to smuggle notes. They can write us.”
“Well, some say they have written.”
“We’re swamped, Diane. I’m sorry, but we’ll try to reply.”
“I’m mostly worried about the lifers. They’re the ones who will die in here.”
“We’re trying—there is only so much we can do.”
“I tell them that, I know. They’re just desperate, like I was desperate before y’all helped me. Marsha, Ashley, Monica, Patricia are sweatin’ me to have you send someone to help.”
We met Marsha Colbey shortly after that and began working on her appeal. We decided to challenge the State’s case and the way the jury had been selected. Charlotte Morrison, a Rhodes Scholar and former student of mine, was now a senior attorney at EJI. She and staff attorney Kristen Nelson, a Harvard Law grad who had worked at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, the nation’s premier public defender office, met with Marsha repeatedly. She would talk about her case, the challenge of keeping her family together while she was in prison, and a range of other problems. But it was the sexual violence at Tutwiler that most frequently came up during these visits.
Charlotte and I took on the case of another woman who had filed a federal civil suit after she was raped at Tutwiler. She had had no legal help; because of defects in her pleadings and the allegations she made in her complaint, we could secure only a small settlement judgment for her. But the details of her experience were so painful that we could no longer look past the violence. We started an investigation for which we interviewed over fifty women; we were truly shocked to see how widespread the problem of sexual violence had become. Several women had been raped and become pregnant. Even when DNA testing confirmed that male officers were the fathers of these children, very little was done about it. Some officers who had received multiple sexual assault complaints were temporarily reassigned to other duties or other prisons, only to wind up back at Tutwiler, where they continued to prey on women. We eventually filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice and released several public reports about the problem, which received widespread media coverage. Tutwiler made a list of the ten worst prisons in America compiled by Mother Jones; it was the only women’s facility to be so dishonored. Legislative hearings and policy changes at the prison followed. Male guards are now banned from the shower areas and toilets, and a new warden has taken over the facility.
Marsha held on despite these challenges and started advocating for some of the younger women. We were devastated when the Court of Criminal Appeals issued a ruling affirming her conviction and sentence. We sought review in the Alabama Supreme Court and won a new trial based on the trial judge’s refusal to exclude people from jury service who were biased and could not be impartial. Marsha and our team were thrilled, local officials in Baldwin County less so. They were threatening re-prosecution. We involved expert pathologists and persuaded local authorities that there was no basis on which to convict Marsha of murder. It took two years to settle the legal case and then another year of wrangling with