Cyntoia Brown was granted full clemency by Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam on Monday after serving 15 years in prison. The decision follows months of intense public pressure and outrage over her case. Brown was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder for shooting her rapist as a teenager. She had been repeatedly abused and drugged. The shooting happened when Brown was just 16 years old, but she was tried as an adult. We speak with Mariame Kaba, organizer and educator who has worked on anti-domestic violence programs, anti-incarceration and racial justice programs since the late 1980s.
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn to the story of Cyntoia Brown, who on Monday was granted full clemency by Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam after serving 15 years in prison. The decision follows months of intense public pressure and outrage over her case.
Brown was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder for shooting her rapist as a teenager. She had been sexually trafficked, repeatedly abused and drugged. The shooting happened when Brown was just 16 years old, but she was tried as an adult.
This is Cyntoia Brown speaking at her clemency hearing in May.
CYNTOIA BROWN: It’s been a very long time. And when I was 16, I did a horrible thing. And I have carried that with me this whole time. …
You always hear people say, like, “If I could go back and if I could change things,” but when you really realize that you’ve done something you can’t undo, like, it stays with you. And it’s stayed with me this whole time. And that people here today that, like, I hurt, they’re hurting now, 14 years later. They’ve been hurting for 14 years, and I did that. And I can’t fix it. I can’t fix it. …
Like, I had to change, because I could not live with…