Fate Winslow, sentenced to life in prison for selling $20 worth of pot, is released after serving 12 years

https://news.yahoo.com/fate-winslow-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-selling-20-worth-of-pot-is-released-after-serving-12-years-182853098.html

Abby Haglage
Wed, December 16, 2020, 1:28 PM EST

Twelve years after being sentenced to life for selling $20 worth of marijuana to an undercover cop, Fate Vincent Winslow will walk out of Louisiana State Penitentiary on Wednesday a free man. “Today is a day of redemption,” the 53-year-old wrote to Yahoo News following his resentencing hearing on Tuesday. “I get my freedom back, I get my life back. There are no words that can really explain my feelings right now.”

Winslow’s release comes through the work of the Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO) and specifically Jee Park, its executive director, who felt confident that there was a path to freedom for Winslow as soon as she found his case. “You read the transcript of his trial and you’re just horrified about what happened,” Park told Yahoo News. “[His attorney] doesn’t object when he gets sentenced to life. He doesn’t file a motion to reconsider … he doesn’t do anything. He just says, ‘Sorry, you got a guilty verdict, you’re going to prison for the rest of your life.’”

•••••

Park said that had Rubenstein emphasized that Winslow was homeless at the time of arrest, or that he was merely acting as a “runner” for a white dealer who — despite pocketing the majority of money — was never arrested, the jury might have ruled differently. Had Rubenstein, then a public defender, flagged to the judge that Winslow’s three prior convictions were all for nonviolent offenses, the judge might have decided that a life sentence was excessive.

•••••

When I spoke to Rubenstein for the 2015 story in the Daily Beast, I was surprised by his remarks about the case. “He was distributing marijuana. I can’t really be sympathetic,” Rubenstein told me, suggesting that Winslow was unworthy of a defense. In documents from the American Civil Liberties Union, the organization that first highlighted the case in a 2013 report, Winslow described standing up in court and imploring the judge for a new attorney, saying Rubenstein was doing “nothing” to help him. The judge denied his request.

•••••

“Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, commits bank and tax fraud and gets 47 months. A homeless man, Fate Winslow, helped sell $20 of pot and got life in prison,” the Massachusetts Democrat tweeted in March 2019. “The words above the Supreme Court say ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ — when will we start acting like it?”

•••••