Our next highlight in the ILLICIT Freedoms Campaign, which aims to show the injustice in US cannabis incarceration, is Robert Franklin from Columbia, Missouri. He was sentenced 22 years without the possibility of parole for a pound of marijuana after pulling off at a “drug checkpoint” on the highway. Robert served 11 of those years, costing taxpayers $244,057. He had a 15 month old child at the time of his arrest. Robert says, “They railroaded me. They gave me 22 years without the possibility of parole for less than a pound of marijuana because I had a record. My co defendant got papers; She didn’t have a record.” He remembers, “They were talking about giving me life without parole.”

Robert Franklin, Jr. was in Lafayette County jail in Missouri for his trial for less than a pound of marijuana. He says, “I didn’t understand why I was sentenced so harshly. I got the book thrown at me. Well, you know, I was a black man in a small white town. Everybody that was in the courtroom was white except for me and my family: the secretary, the stenographer, the prosecutor, my lawyer, the judge, the jury.” Robert recalls the jury selection process and one moment in particular, “After they selected the jury, they asked if there were any questions from the jury pool and one lady said, ‘How long is gonna take because I’ve got a volleyball game to coach?!’” It took them 15-20 minutes to come back with a guilty verdict. He would be sentenced to 22 years without the possibility of parole costing taxpayers $244,057.

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Robert was sentenced to 22 years without the possibility of parole for less than a pound of marijuana by a “jury of his peers” in Lafayette County, Missouri.

He says, “They sent me to a level 5 security prison in Lincoln, Missouri. I did 6 years there around a bunch of ultra violent people. Ive seen people get stabbed, I heard about people getting raped, I’ve seen people get beat up, I’ve seen guards get beat up, guards get stabbed. They sent me there with the worst of the worst and I just had a pound of weed.”

In the unedited recording you can find on our website, Robert recalls the lack of purpose in these brutalities. “A lot of those people in there didn’t have hope for the future; They had nothing to live for, nothing to lose, so if you got into an altercation or something they tried to do more than harm somebody. So I didn’t understand why I got a nonviolent drug case and you send me around a whole bunch of violent people. I had a cellmate who shot somebody 6 times in the face and he got 15 years. And here I was with 22.”

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Robert Franklin, Jr. was filing anything that he could, learning from anyone who came into the law library with a drug charge.

“I was in the law library so long I was a regular; The secretaries would help me find stuff. I filed for clemency and got denied. Then, I was talking to my mother and she said there’s this lady who wants to help you from Canna Convict. I got on the phone with her and she said she was gonna help me. We filed petitions. I also had a lawyer out of Kansas City hooking me up with some reporters. I got an ad in the Riverfront Times, I was doing telephone conversations, trying to be my own advocate, basically.” Robert was released on July 1st of 2021, able to reunite with his family and his daughter who was only 15 months at the time of his arrest.

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When asked about his adjustment to life out of prison, Robert says, “I’ve been free since July 2021 but I’m still on edge. Trying to watch everybody, their movements. I don’t do sociable things anymore. I don’t know if it's harder to get a job than maintain it because most of the jobs that I qualify for have me being around a lot of people and I can’t be around a lot of people.”

Robert signs off with, “For all those listening just think about what you’re doing. Think before you act. Don’t move off your emotions. If you’re out there, don’t keep your mind cloudy. And keep you a good lawyer.”

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