Fate Winslow, 53, walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in December 2020 after a judge resentenced him to 12 years with credit for time served, freeing him 12 years into a life sentence for selling $20 of marijuana.[1] “A life sentence for two bags of weed?” he said after his release. “I never thought something like that could happen.”[1]
In September 2008 Winslow was broke and homeless in Shreveport when he sold an undercover officer two “dime bags” of marijuana for $20, borrowing a friend’s bicycle to fetch the drug after a plainclothes officer said they were seeking marijuana.[1][2] Because he had previous convictions, a Louisiana court sentenced him to life in prison under the state’s habitual-offender law.[1][2]
The non-profit Innocence Project New Orleans, led by executive director Jee Park, drove the resentencing case, calling the life term obscenely excessive for his circumstances and his crime; Winslow was the third person the organisation helped free that year.[1][2] Rolling Stone had highlighted his case in 2017 among unusually harsh marijuana sentences, reporting that the man who allegedly facilitated the sale was never charged despite being found with the marked $20 bill.[1]
