Early parole after two years’ imprisonment for Oklahoma woman initially given 12 years for small pot sales
Regular readers may recall the story of Patricia Spottedcrow, first discussed in this post, who was initially sentenced to a dozen years in Oklahoma state prison for selling $31 in marijuana to a police informant in December 2009 and January 2010. This recent story from the Tusla World, headlined “Patricia Spottedcrow paroled early in 12-year sentence for $31 bag of marijuana,” explains how she is now out of prison:
The four reasons Patricia Spottedcrow most wanted out of prison were back in her arms Thursday afternoon, after their mother was released on parole. Her children are 11, 6, 5 and 3 years old now. The youngest was just 1 when Spottedcrow began her prison sentence two years ago.
If Gov. Mary Fallin hadn’t approved Spottedcrow’s parole and if the Pardon and Parole Board hadn’t agreed to early consideration for her case, her children might have all been teenagers by the time she got out.
Spottedcrow was released from Hillside Community Corrections Center in Oklahoma City on Thursday morning after completing a community-level sentence required by the governor as a condition of her parole. Her 12-year prison sentence for selling $31 worth of marijuana garnered widespread national attention after her story was featured in a 2011 Tulsa World series on women in prison.
Spottedcrow originally faced a 12-year prison sentence out of Kingfisher County for selling a “dime bag” of marijuana to a police informant. She entered prison in December 2010 after spending a few months waiting in the county jail.
After her story was published in the World, grassroots supporters lobbied officials to reconsider Spottedcrow’s punishment. Advocates expressed concern for possible racial bias, disparate sentences for drug crimes, Oklahoma’s No. 1 female incarceration rate per capita and the effects on children growing up with incarcerated parents.
The specifics of this case are notable not only because of how extreme Spottedcrow’s initial prison sentence appeared to be, but also because of how Oklahoma’s preservation of parole in its sentencing system served as a kind of second-look safety valve so that this seemingly not-so-dangerous first-offender could be released without the state and others having to bear the considerable costs of an extreme extended term of imprisonment.
Prior posts on Spottedcrow’s case: