For nearly two decades, Geneva Cooley assumed she would die in prison for nonviolent drug crimes. Then a judge reduced her sentence and changed her fate.

By Photographs by

Oct. 28, 2019

WETUMPKA, Ala. — In the pink-walled dormitory of the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women , nearly all of the inmates had risen before dawn. Some sat on one another’s beds, applying makeup and sipping instant coffee. Geneva Cooley sat alone, having just put on her white uniform for the last time.

For nearly two decades, Ms. Cooley, 72, had assumed she would die in prison. She had been sentenced to life without parole on a slew of drug-related convictions, at a time when drug charges carried that stiff mandatory minimum.