Trump pardon helped, but wrongs remain
His appointees are not compassionate
Chances are U.S. Attorney Michael Dunavant is big mad right now.
Since President Donald Trump commuted Alice Marie Johnson’s life sentence on federal drug charges in 2018 — a life that she, as well as scores of other Black people, become ensnared in to navigate the poverty and social isolation that governs their lives — Dunavant has been consumed with stopping Johnson from what he sees as her profiting from her crime. Others see Johnson’s actions as making use of her redemption.
So last year, Dunavant strongly objected to Johnson’s request to be released from early supervision. Wrote Dunavant: “Motivated by continued greed for money, fame and celebrity, the defendant seeks to throw off the pesky burden of supervised release, which the Court imposed and the President specifically left intact.”
Well, now, Trump has issued Johnson, who praised him during her Thursday speech at the Republican National Convention, a full pardon. That means she no longer has to ask Dunavant or the district court to do anything.
“I had no idea, none, that he was going to do this,” Johnson said. “I don’t have to worry about those folks anymore, because they were trying to make sure that I didn’t get a second chance.
“They were trying to say that the president wanted me to be on probation. Obviously he didn’t. I don’t let them occupy space in my brain anymore. I am free.”
What does Trump’s pardon really change?
Now, Johnson can travel to talk about her book, “Afterlife: My Journey from Incarceration to Freedom.”
She can travel to urge others, who might be tempted by momentary desperation to choose the dead end where criminality leads, to choose another route.
But while that pardon is good news for Johnson, prosecutors like Dunavant are bad news for others who face draconian sentences for non-violent, drug crimes.
They’re bad news for inmates who have clearly learned from their mistakes and could spare taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars a year in incarceration costs simply by being granted a second chance.
Yet Trump is the one who appointed Dunavant.
Trump is the one who has nominated people such as Thomas Farr, a North Carolina attorney who was involved with efforts to suppress Black turnout in that state’s elections, to the federal bench.
He’s nominated attorneys like Wendy Vitter — who won’t say whether she agrees with the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that led to school desegregation — to the federal bench.
And Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, is pushing for an expansion of mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug crimes involving Fentanyl analogues, a widening of the same trap that ensnared Johnson.
In other words, Trump’s compassion toward Johnson isn’t reflected in the mindsets of the people he’s appointing to positions where the fate of people like her is decided.
The fight for racial justice, equality
That’s why, as compelling as Johnson’s story is, and as effusive as her praise is for Trump, it largely is a tale of someone’s benevolence, not one about a commitment to racial equality or equal justice.
And benevolence and justice are two different things.
Benevolence is what happens when people in positions of power like Trump happen to hear about someone who, for whatever reason, can make them feel better about themselves through granting it. Johnson became the beneficiary of such benevolence when, after vividly describing her plight on social media, she captured the attention of Kim Kardashian West.
West, a reality show star, in turn caught the attention of a former reality show star — Trump.
Trump saw Johnson through the eyes of a fellow celebrity; as someone worthy of redemption. Few people could fill that bill more than Johnson, a 64-year-old Black grandmother who had already spent two decades in prison and who, by any reasonable standard, was no longer a threat to anyone.
So Trump granted Johnson clemency and, after her speech at the RNC, granted her a full pardon. Which she deserved.
But while Trump managed to see Johnson — a Black woman whose impoverished situation drove her to crime — as worthy of a second chance, it means little if he appoints people like Dunavant to powerful positions who don’t see people like her through a similar lens.
In fairness, the First Step Act, a bipartisan law that Trump signed in 2018, does many things to help former inmates, many of whom are Black, re-enter society. But such an effort is diminished if Trump nominates people to the federal and appellate bench who won’t say whether they agree with a Supreme Court decision that not only paved the way for Black people like Johnson to attend desegregated schools, but to share public facilities with white people, as well.
And it means little if he has an attorney general who, for all intents and purposes, wants to revive the War on Drugs rather than usher in its end.
So, by all means, Johnson is right to praise Trump for giving her a second chance. The problem is that his policies, and the people he appoints to carry them out, may not.
“This is my story, but there are others in my situation who have similar stories,” she said.
Johnson’s right. The question is: Will they, like Johnson, get the right audience to listen?
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Tonyaa Weathersbee at 901568-3281, tonyaa.weathersbee@commercialappeal.com or follow her on Twitter @tonyaajw.