A Black Army vet spent 16 months in solitary. Then a jury heard the evidence against him.

Source: Washington Post

A Black Army vet spent 16 months in solitary. Then a jury heard the evidence against him.

Andrew Johnson refused to plead guilty to attempted murder charges, insisting he’d been defending himself during a confrontation in California.

By Sydney Trent
June 13, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

The cell was smaller than a parking space, bound by three dirty beige concrete walls and a steel door with a narrow slot to push in meals and shackle hands.

There was a narrow cot, a toilet, a sink. The filmy glass on the barred window allowed little sun; the always-on fluorescent ceiling light allowed no darkness. Each day brought the clanging of chains, the shuffling and shouting of guards and inmates, the threat of violence or the reality of it. Each day poured itself into the next.

For 16 months and all but a random hour every other day, Andrew Johnson languished in solitary confinement in a California jail. The first day — Nov. 12, 2014 — was hardly different from the 479th day.

“When they put you in solitary confinement, you’re no longer thinking clearly,” Johnson, 33, says now. “You’re thinking ‘Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God. I’m trapped.’ ”

Johnson, an Army veteran who’d undergone Special Forces training, knew how to endure hardship. ...

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/13/solitary-confinement-andrew-johnson-san-jose-jail/

Non-paywalled link: https://wapo.st/3xlfd4q

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The article is a long but enlightening read.