Kevin Ott drew his first strike when he was arrested for a small bag of methamphetamine in his pocket in 1993.

A year later, authorities caught the self-described country boy from Okemah with marijuana plants growing at his home. That strike got him 15 months in prison.

Still in his early 30s, Ott took strike three in 1996 when police found 31/2 ounces of meth in his home, enough for prosecutors to charge him with trafficking. His punishment: life without parole.

Today, Ott is one of about 50 Oklahoma inmates serving a life sentence for nonviolent felony drug convictions.

“I have lived the last 19 years knowing I will die in prison for a nonviolent crime,” Ott, now 52, wrote in March from the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite, a state prison that houses older inmates. “I saw on the news last night where a man killed two women and their unborn children and will only do 25 years in prison. Where is the justice?”

Passed in 1989, when the war on drugs was raging, Oklahoma’s three-strikes drug law is one of the toughest in the nation. Two prior convictions for any drug felony — even possession of small amounts of marijuana — followed by a drug trafficking conviction, invokes a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

But at a time when Oklahoma’s prisons are bursting at the seams and draining state coffers, some say its time to revisit a law that sends nonviolent offenders to prison for life with no hope of getting out.

“Oklahoma desperately needs sentencing reform because we have a lot of incredibly draconian sentences that we don’t actually realize any value out of,” said Rep. Cory Williams, D-Stillwater, who is pushing for legislation that would cut the mandatory minimum in such cases to 20 years.

For this story, The Oklahoman requested information from the state Corrections Department on all prisoners serving life without parole for a drug offense. The department responded with 55 names.

Those imprisoned include 49 men and six women.

Thirty-two are black, 21 are white and two are Hispanic.

The oldest is K.O. Cooper, a 74 year-old grandfather from Enid who is nearly blind.

The youngest is Qualon Hawkins, 31, who was found guilty of killing a man outside an Oklahoma City convenience store in 2006 and is one of only three convicted of violent crimes. Nine months later, a jury also found him guilty of drug trafficking.

The 55 convictions come from 21 counties. The longest behind prison walls is Leland Dodd; he has served almost 25 years for conspiracy to buy marijuana in a reverse-sting operation. Others are newly lifers, including Seth Speed, 34, of Lawton, who began his sentence earlier this year.

The Oklahoman reached out by mail in March to all 54 inmates then serving life without parole, seeking information about their life before prison, involvement with drugs and journey through the criminal justice system. Twenty-seven responded with letters. A few asked relatives to contact the newspaper to relay their comments. The Oklahoman did not reach one inmate whose name the Department of Corrections provided after a reporter sent the letters. In addition, prison officials initially failed to deliver the letters to the six women serving life sentences for drug convictions. Prison officials blamed it on an oversight and sought to deliver letters to them last week, but responses weren’t received in time for this story.

Like many inmates who did respond to The Oklahoman, Bernard Mantzke, of Lawton, said he feels forgotten.

“For too many years, little thought has been given to those of us behind bars,” wrote Mantzke, who began his life sentence in 2006. “When President Reagan waged his war on drugs, the public stood behind it. Well, times have changed.”

Family photos of K.O. Cooper (sitting, far right). Photo provided

'Like cancer'

Jamel Hall echoed a common theme among the inmates who wrote when he talked about the unjustness of being handed the harshest possible sentence short of execution, when many murderers and violent criminals serve less time.

“The punishment (is) not fitting the crime,” wrote Hall, whose third strike came when he was convicted in Tulsa County in 1998 of trafficking crack cocaine. “There is a heavy hand of injustice that is prevalent in the South and...is killing minorities off with a death by incarceration.”

Though many people assume those serving life without parole under the three-strikes law are major drug dealers or kingpins, rarely is that the case, said Brady Henderson, legal director for ACLU Oklahoma, a branch of the national human rights organization.

Most of the people caught under this law are not violent, callous cartel members profiting off people’s addictions and miseries like the public likely assumes, Henderson said. Instead, they often have addiction issues that weren’t addressed after their first two strikes.

“You’ve got people who, in many cases, made very stupid mistakes and didn’t deal with a problem they should have dealt with,” Henderson said. “They are not the things I think we want to think they are.”

Many offenders wrote about struggling with addiction.

Mike Hackler, 62, of McAlester, has been serving life without parole since 2006. “I was not a big drug dealer,” he wrote. “I was a drug addict. I have done drugs most of my life. I grew up in a drug culture. All my friends did drugs and to pay for drugs you sometimes have to sell small amounts.”

Another lifer, Hall, 39, writes: “I have a drug problem, a very real illness like cancer.”

Other three-strikes offenders described the poverty that led them to drugs. Anthony C. Marshall Sr. wrote about his family, including his five children. “Me and my wife worked but (it was) never enough money to take care of five kids,” he said. “I took matters in my own hands as a man should, just in the most stupid way.”

Cooper, the oldest three-strikes offender, described becoming involved in drugs after retirement to support his children and grandchildren.

“My family grew so fast and I was not about to let any of them go without,” he wrote. “I do not think or feel my way of supporting them was right, but I do feel it was best. My family came first.”

Cooper has been serving life without parole since 2012; his prior convictions resulted from undercover drug buys by the Enid Police Department in November and December 1988.

Bob Ravitz, Oklahoma County public defender “Even in a murder case, you have an option. In this type of drug case that is no longer the situation, and that’s ridiculous.”

War on drugs

The Oklahoma Legislature passed the three-strikes law in 1987, at a time when the nation was trending toward stiffer penalties for nonviolent drug crimes. It immediately found proponents — and critics.

In an article published in The Oklahoman on Feb. 1, 1991, prosecutors described the first time a drug offender was sentenced to life without parole as “a landmark case for Oklahoma” that sends a strong message to drug dealers.

But the next day, Oklahoma County’s public defender, Bob Ravitz, blasted the new law.

“Punishment on this crime is barbaric,” he was quoted as saying. “Even in a murder case, you have an option. In this type of drug case that is no longer the situation, and that’s ridiculous.”

That defendant in that first case, Archie Hill, died in 1997. But Dodd, the longest serving inmate, was sentenced to life without parole the same year. He’s still behind bars 24 years later for conspiracy.

The letters, Dodd, 61, wrote were the shortest of any of the three-strikes offenders who corresponded with The Oklahoman. But his case is considered one of the most egregious, by rights activists. He was arrested in an undercover buy with a police officer posing as a seller — and Dodd’s role was financing the deal. On appeal, he argued he was coerced into buying a larger quantity than intended and that he never took possession of the marijuana before the arrest.

His prior convictions include drug felonies dating back to 1978, including possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and simple possession of marijuana.

While Dodd went to trial, three co-conspirators accepted plea deals. Two received probation. The third received 15 years and discharged from prison over a decade ago.

Dodd was named the Oklahoma offender most deserving of clemency by The Clemency Report, a national advocacy organization run by Dennis Cauchon, a former USA Today reporter.

Cauchon said Oklahoma has a moral obligation to have a functioning clemency system to correct injustices like Dodd‘s. Because these offenders aren‘t eligible for parole, they only go before the state Pardon and Parole Board if they apply for commutation. Even if the board recommends commuting their sentence, the final decision is left to the governor.

“Oklahoma elected officials and residents like to pretend that Leland doesn’t exist, that his case is not an injustice that reflects poorly on the state’s moral character,” Cauchon writes in The Clemency Report.

Dodd has applied for commutation and the board is expected to consider his request next month.

Meanwhile, Dodd has lost contact with all his family and friends. In his most recent prison photo, his face is framed by a bald head and an unruly, gray beard. His teeth are in such bad condition he takes medications to be able to eat.

“I don’t need a lawyer. They are crooks,” Dodd wrote. “I need a doctor and a dentist.”

Connie Johnson. Photo by Paul Southerland/The Oklahoman

'Keep me out of jail'

The number of three-strike inmates in state prisons continues to rise, from 34 in 2008 to the current 55.

In 2011, Connie Johnson, then a state senator, proposed a bill that would not only have done away with the mandatory life without parole sentence for drug trafficking after two convictions, but also would have required the parole board to immediately review the cases of all the offenders serving time under the statute.

At the time, she voiced support for Larry Yarbrough, 65, who is serving life without parole for an ounce of cocaine and three marijuana cigarettes. He’s a model prisoner who successfully trained dogs through a prison program, she said.

Yarbrough has twice been recommended for clemency by the board, but both times, the governor rejected their recommendations. Yarbrough now has served more than 18 years.

Johnson’s bill was never heard.

But with the prison population now at 111 percent of capacity and the state struggling to find money to finance the swollen system, lawmakers are trying again.

House Bill 1574, proposed by Williams, the Stillwater representative, and Sen. AJ Griffin, R-Guthrie, would give judges the option to sentence drug traffickers with two prior drug convictions anywhere from 20 years to life without parole. It will not apply to offenders facing a third drug-trafficking conviction. Last year’s version of the bill died in committee. This year’s bill passed the legislature last week, but still must be signed by Gov. Mary Fallin.

Williams cites the case of Sheilia Devereux, a Tulsa woman who was serving life under the three-strikes law until 2011, when a judge altered her sentence to the six years she had served. After twice receiving probation for drug possession charges, a judge had sentenced the mother of three to life without parole when she was caught with six grams of crack cocaine.

Devereux’s case involved several Tulsa police officers who were later indicted in a corruption scandal. The district attorney agreed to her sentence being modified on the grounds that her attorney was ineffective.

Edmond attorney Debra Hampton said many of her clients facing a first or second drug charge will say “just keep me out of jail” and accept plea agreements for probation or a suspended sentence. They don’t realize those prior convictions can come back to haunt them in a big way, she said.

“Drug trafficking” is defined broadly under Oklahoma law and includes possessing, distributing, transporting or manufacturing a certain quantity, such as 25 pounds of marijuana, 20 grams of methamphetamine, 28 grams of cocaine or five grams of crack cocaine. Prosecutors often charge defendants with trafficking based solely on the amount of drugs found.

Few are violent

Human rights advocates say nonviolent offenders can be monitored in the community rather incarcerated at cost to taxpayers of up to $30,000 a year for each inmate.

In Dodd’s case, though his conviction for conspiracy was upheld on appeal, two of the dissenting judges wrote that his sentence bordered on cruel when compared to violent criminals.

“Other horrible, violent crimes such as rape, second-degree murder, and armed robbery are not punished as severely as Mr. Dodd was for conspiracy to traffic marijuana (a nonviolent crime.) Such a severe and grossly disproportionate punishment for an inchoate crime such as conspiracy is, at a minimum, unusual and indeed, under the facts of this case, may be considered cruel,” the judges wrote in their 1994 opinion.

Another lifer, Daniel Mosley, got clean through a drug treatment program and was attending graduate school to become a drug and alcohol counselor following his arrest, but prior to his sentencing.

“Each incarceration took me further away from my career, my friends, and family and deeper into addiction,” Mosley wrote from prison. “I never could get into recovery while in prison...and believe me, the threat of prison or even death will not deter an alcoholic and/or addict from drinking or using until they get to the root cause of the problem.”

Mosley wrote about being abused as a child and developing an addiction to drugs. In 2008, he was leaving a drug dealer’s house in Norman when drug task force officers conducting a raid stopped him in the driveway. Officers searched Mosley’s pockets and found 4 ounces of meth, records show.

Because Mosley had a series of previous minor drug arrests and convictions, he was charged as a three-strikes offender.

Still, a parole officer recommended he be supervised in the community due to his recovery efforts and progress toward an advanced degree.

“The judge was against this ‘mandatory’ sentence and showed mercy,” Mosley wrote, but because of the law, he received life without parole anyway. He’s been in prison five years. His attorney has filed a petition in Cleveland County District Court to have his sentenced reviewed.

Just three of the 55 three-strikes offenders have a conviction for a violent crime on their Oklahoma record. Yet, all three received a stiffer sentence for drug trafficking than the violent crime.

For instance, Pamela D. Hutcheson served two years in prison for rape by instrumentation in Tulsa County. But it was a 2005 drug conviction that got her life without parole.

A Tulsa jury also convicted Hawkins, the youngest three-strikes drug offender at 31, of murder. Hawkins could become eligible for parole on the murder charge, but not the drug charge.

Darius Payne, the third inmate convicted of a violent crime, got 12 years for robbery by fear, but two life sentences — one without parole — on drug charges.

Richard Dopp. Photo provided

'I'm done'

Many people — even prosecutors — draw a distinction between marijuana and harder drugs such as methamphetamine or crack cocaine.

A police officer chased a loose pit bull onto Richard Dopp’s property in Muskogee in 1990. There, the officer discovered seven marijuana plants growing in the yard, some towering as high as seven feet. The officer got a search warrant and also found several bags of marijuana inside the house.

Though that brush with the law didn’t result in a conviction, Dopp was later charged with drug trafficking in Ottawa County under the three-strikes law.

At trial, jurors determined he was guilty but were hesitant to give him a verdict that would mean a mandatory sentence of life without parole. They even attempted to scratch “life without parole” from jury instructions and submit it to the judge with a handwritten sentence of 30 years instead.

But the Ottawa County judge’s hands were tied. Dopp received life without parole.

“I did think it was unfair at the time because that’s all they found there was marijuana. They didn’t find any hard drugs,” said 62-year-old Deborah Jo Bussey, who was one of the jurors on Dopp’s 1998 case.

From prison, Dopp writes that he has since given up the drug that ruined his life.

“I quit smoking pot in November ’98. The high just made me dwell on the fact that pot is why I’m locked up and not able to raise my son,” he said. “I’m done with it, even if they legalize it.”

Another marijuana offender, William Dufries, was driving through Oklahoma from Atlanta when he was pulled over by a state trooper in 2003 for driving eight miles over the speed limit with a broken tail light. Inside his recreational vehicle, troopers discovered 67 pounds of marijuana.

Dufries, 57, whose story was detailed in a 2013 ACLU report titled “A Living Death,” said he got involved in transporting marijuana to cover the cost of his health care after being diagnosed with lung cancer while uninsured. Dufries admits it was a bad decision.

Because he had prior convictions for conspiracy to distribute cocaine in 1988 and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in 1996, he was found guilty under the state three-strikes drug trafficking law. Dufries said he rejected a plea deal for 40 years because his public defender incorrectly calculated his parole eligibility at 36.4 years instead of 13.3 years.

He also thought “no jury in their right mind would give a life-without-parole sentence for a nonviolent marijuana offense,” he is quoted as saying in the ACLU report. But the jury had no choice.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article included an incorrect year when a police officer entered Richard Dopp’s property in Muskogee. The year has since been corrected.

Chris Ross. Photo by Jim Beckel/The Oklahoman

Supporters

One of the most convincing arguments to amend the three-strikes law is cost savings, said Henderson, of the ACLU. The promise that was made in the 1980s and 1990s when tough drug laws were enacted has been unfulfilled — and the result is overcrowded prisons that are too costly.

Fiscal conservatives, not typically sympathetic to prisoners, are realizing the policy is bankrupting the state, he said. The agency has a budget of $583 million for the current year, one of the largest of any state agency.

“These laws are literally crushing our social structure under the weight of our own armor. And that’s an incredibly dangerous thing,” Henderson said.

And it’s not just the direct cost, but also the ripple effect it causes to prisoners’ families and the absence of a positive economic impact these prisoners could be making outside prison walls, he said.

In some cases, prosecutors say, the law works against them.

Some juries refuse to convict a drug offender knowing the only punishment they can choose is life without parole, they say. That’s why district attorneys support allowing a range of punishment in such cases, like HB 1574 will allow, said Chris Ross, a district attorney for Pontotoc, Hughes and Seminole counties and president of the state District Attorneys Council.

When a law covers a wide range of crimes and criminal histories, having just one punishment isn’t the best solution, Ross said.

Many of the incarcerated three-strikes offenders have voiced hope that HB 1574 will pass and alter their sentence. While not retroactive, some offenders still hope the bill could give them grounds to appeal their convictions or have their sentences modified, they say.

Kevin Ott, currently serving a life sentence for a nonviolent felony drug conviction “I’ve got letters out the wazoo. I have a T-shirt that says ‘Free Kevin Ott.’ I have everything but my son.”

Everything, but...

Ott grew up in Oklahoma and Arkansas and liked to hunt, fish and target practice, things he’s missed since he began life behind bars in 1997.

In his letter, Ott described his path from a typical, blue-collar worker, to being laid off after a hernia surgery, to finding that unemployment didn’t make ends meet. He turned to selling meth for a little extra money.

“I never claimed to be an angel,” he said. But his punishment — which he describes as a slow death sentence — doesn’t fit the crime, he wrote.

“I am just an average ordinary working man who has made some very bad decisions,” Ott said. “I really don’t think I should die in prison for having a substance abuse problem.”

After Ott’s earlier drug convictions, his mother, Betty Chism, begged authorities to send her son to rehab. She even offered to pay. Ironically, he’s now ineligible for drug treatment because of his life sentence.

Ott recognizes the ways his choices have hurt his family, and has paid dearly. His youngest sister died in a car accident while driving to visit him in prison.

Through an appearance on the documentary “The House I Live In” and sales of the leather goods he has created in prison, Ott has gained a diverse following of supporters. His biggest, though, is his mother, who works tirelessly to promote Ott’s work, attends rallies to end mandatory-minimum sentencing and makes the 21/2-hour trek from Norman to visit her son when she can.

“I’ve got letters out the wazoo. I have a T-shirt that says ‘Free Kevin Ott.’ I have everything but my son,” Chism said.