Kelly Harnett Had to Get Free: After helping dozens of her fellow prisoners, a jailhouse lawyer finally found the means to help herself.
New York Magazine, January 4, 2023: Kelly Harnett Had to Get Free: After helping dozens of her fellow prisoners, a jailhouse lawyer finally found the means to help herself.
“Soon after she was sent to Rikers in 2010, Kelly Harnett became a regular at the jail’s law library. She was looking for a loophole, a technical error, something that might set her free.
“Harnett was 28 and facing murder charges for the killing of a stranger in a park in Queens. She was innocent, she would tell anyone who would listen; she had been a bystander, unable to stop her abusive boyfriend from choking the man.
“Harnett became focused on the ways in which the criminal legal system targeted women and specifically survivors of abuse like herself. She discovered that nearly all her friends inside had been abused before they came to prison and that, for most, the abuse was in some way directly connected to their incarceration. ‘I looked around and thought, If it wasn’t for her abuser, she wouldn’t be here. And if it wasn’t for her abuser, she wouldn’t be here,’ she said. There were about 30 women in the room. Harnett envisioned releasing everyone who had a crime related to enduring abuse: In her mind’s eye, the room emptied out; just two remained.
“Harnett first learned about the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act in 2014 when she received a letter from an organization that had been campaigning for the law’s passage. The DVSJA, the letter said, ‘would allow judges to sentence DV survivors convicted of crimes as a result of abuse to shorter prison terms … the bill would also give currently incarcerated survivors the opportunity to apply to the courts to be resentenced.’ Harnett tucked it away.”
Additional reading:
The White House, December 30, 2022: A Proclamation on National Stalking Awareness Month, 2023
The Washington Post, January 3, 2023: The history of anti-Black misogyny shaping coverage of Megan Thee Stallion
