The final shoe has dropped on the Brittany Griner case and there are now only two people on Earth who can help set her free, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Yes, Putin’s middle name is really just an extension of his first name but we digress.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the American basketball star had her appeal rejected today as a last-ditch effort to get her free from her 9-year prison sentence on possession of hashish oil conviction. At this point, the Russian legal system has run its course the United States government is going to have to put in some real work to get Brittany home. This story isn’t about to go away. People will not forget Brittany’s name and damn sure won’t stop advocating for her release. If she’s not home by the next presidential election, best believe the question will be posed to whoever the candidates of the time are.
It feels disingenuous to talk about “silver linings” but U.S. diplomatic ambassador Elizabeth Rood made mention of a minor change that the court made to Griner’s sentence:
“The appeals court made a slight reduction in her sentence for time served in pretrial detention, but otherwise did not change the excessive and disproportionate sentence of nine years in a penal colony.”
The court’s three-judge panel ruled that each day that Ms. Griner spent in pretrial detention would count for one-and-a-half days served at the penal colony, but “the rest of the sentence is unchanged,” the judges said.
Gee, thanks. #FreeBG ’til it’s backwards.