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Marsha Colbey is a poor white woman sentenced to life in prison after giving birth to a stillborn child in rural Alabama. Stevenson details her story and his fight to secure her release in Chapter Twelve, and in doing so, he calls attention to the unique struggles of impoverished mothers and the biases that often prevent them from receiving the assistance they truly need. As a woman in her forties, Colbey recognizes that her pregnancy is high-risk, but her family’s dire financial situation and the devastation caused by Hurricane Ivan prevent her from pursuing prenatal care. She is deeply distraught when her son is born prematurely and stillborn in the bathtub of their trailer. The fact that Colbey endures this experience in the first place highlights the financial barriers that make it very challenging for poor families to receive the medical care they need, sometimes with fatal consequences. Rather than looking at broader socioeconomic trends to explain the high infant mortality rate in the United States, however, the blame often lands upon mothers themselves. This misdirected blame is precisely what falls upon Colbey as her nosy neighbor reports her to the authorities who, in response, charge her with capital murder.
As is the case with many of the stories that Stevenson recounts in the novel, those in charge of deciding Colbey’s fate choose to believe the easy answer, that she is a negligent mother, rather than genuinely considering the circumstances that led to the tragedy. The fact that Colbey has a very close and loving relationship with her other children means nothing in the eyes of those who buy into the “bad mother” narrative, and the jury convicts her when her young family needs her the most. Colbey’s wrongful imprisonment ultimately serves as yet another example of the inappropriate use of prison as a means of ignoring pressing, systematic inequities in the United States. When Stevenson and his team finally manage to secure her release, Colbey joyfully reunites with her children and husband. Rather than returning to her previous life, however, her time at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women inspires her to fight for justice on behalf of the incarcerated women she left behind. From the overcrowded conditions to the pervasiveness of sexual assault, Colbey hopes to use her harrowing experiences as a means of inspiring institutional change.
