It would take three years - almost half of it in solitary - before Johnson got the chance to testify in his own defense. "I am a warrior until my death and I must stand to injustice no matter how dismal the odds." "My frustration with my case will not allow me to consent to a lie," Johnson wrote his mother in a Nov. Prosecutors offered Johnson a lesser sentence in exchange for a guilty plea, but he refused to accept a deal. People of color were overrepresented in that count, as they are in the nation's prisons.Īs evidence has mounted about the long-term mental health damage caused by solitary confinement, there has been a "seismic shift" in the willingness of federal and state authorities to reform or eliminate its use in prisons, said David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberty Union's National Prison Project, which focuses on defending inmate rights.īut the anti-solitary movement has had far less success curtailing the practice in locally controlled jails, where it is particularly egregious because most people being detained haven't been convicted of the charges against them, Fathi said.Īndrew Johnson, now 33, spent 16 months in solitary confinement after being charged with attempted murder in San Jose, Calif. In a sample of 357 jails housing almost nearly 53,000 inmates, it found roughly 2.7 percent were held in solitary - some for 30 days or more. The bureau's last survey on the subject was a decade ago. ![]() Yet there is no systematic attempt by the federal government to track the use of solitary in jails, experts say. The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, which oversees the jail and was responsible for the decision, did not respond to several requests for comment.īetween 20, Johnson was among about 735,000 people who were being held at any given time in the nation's 3,000 jails, most of them awaiting trial, according to the U.S. No one ever explained to Johnson, his parents, William and Angela Johnson, or Johnson's criminal defense attorney why he was put in isolation, they said. But at 26, he was sent to solitary immediately after he was booked into the jail to await trial. Johnson insisted he was defending himself and had done nothing wrong. Then a nighttime encounter with two strangers in San Jose, Calif., led to his arrest for attempted murder. He had grown up in a comfortable Washington, D.C., suburb, the adored only son in a deeply religious Black family. ![]() He had a military diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury to show for it.īut Johnson had never been isolated from the world like this before. ![]() He'd carried 120 pounds in a rucksack for days, he'd overcome a lifelong fear of heights to parachute from planes, he'd fought his way back from a coma after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning. Johnson, an Army veteran who'd undergone Special Forces training, knew how to endure hardship. "You're thinking 'Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God. ![]() "When they put you in solitary confinement, you're no longer thinking clearly," Johnson, 33, says now.
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