Docket

Cyntoia Brown is a young woman serving a life sentence in the Tennessee Prison for Women. Ms. Brown was a sixteen-year-old who had been forced into prostitution when she killed a man more than twice her age, a stranger who had picked her up for sex. She was tried and convicted as an adult. The jury did not know when they convicted her that Ms. Brown suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, which limited her executive brain function. Under Tennessee law, a child convicted as an adult is also sentenced as an adult. Thus, by operation of law, Ms. Brown must serve a minimum of 51 years in prison. Without intervention, she will likely spend the rest of her life in prison.