Cyntoia Brown Is Freed From Prison in Tennessee

Ms. Brown, 31, was sentenced to life in prison for killing a man while she was a teenage sex trafficking victim. She was granted clemency in January.

Cyntoia Brown, who served 15 years of a life sentence for killing a man who had picked her up when she was a teenage trafficking victim, was released from a Tennessee prison on Wednesday, the Department of Corrections said.

Ms. Brown’s story made national headlines, raised awareness of the plight of trafficked young people and inspired a push for criminal justice reform in Tennessee.

In January, the state’s governor at the time, Bill Haslam, bowed to pressure from lawmakers, activists and celebrities and granted her clemency.

Placed into adoption as a child, Ms. Brown, now 31, ran away from her adoptive family at 16 and lived in a motel with a pimp who raped her and forced her into prostitution, according to court documents.

In 2004, Johnny M. Allen, 43, a real estate broker, picked up Ms. Brown at a Nashville restaurant and drove her to his home after she agreed to engage in sexual activity for $150, the documents say.

Ms. Brown testified that, at one point when they were in his bedroom, she thought he was reaching for a gun to kill her. She shot him in his sleep with a handgun that had been in her purse, took money and two guns and fled, according to the documents.

 

Create an account or log in

She was arrested and tried as an adult on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated robbery. In 2006, Ms. Brown was convicted by a Davidson County jury of those charges and sentenced to life in prison. She would not have been eligible for parole until 2055.

When Mr. Haslam granted her clemency, he set her release for Aug. 7, which commuted her sentence to 15 years from the date she was arrested.

Ms. Brown’s legal team said in a statement on Monday that Ms. Brown was declining interview requests immediately after leaving prison. “I look forward to using my experiences to help other women and girls suffering abuse and exploitation,” she said in the statement.

While in prison, Ms. Brown was described by supporters as a model prisoner. She earned her high school equivalency diploma and an associate degree with a 4.0 grade-point average through Lipscomb University, and she started working on a bachelor’s degree.

Over the years, her case attracted increasing attention, propelled by support from celebrities including Rihanna and Kim Kardashian West. A documentary about her life was released in 2011.

Shortly before Mr. Haslam’s term ended in January, lawmakers urged him to use his powers of executive clemency and commute her sentence, pointing out that since her conviction, the laws about trying teenagers as adults had changed.

But a detective who had worked on the murder case urged the governor to oppose clemency.

Mr. Haslam, a Republican, had noted when announcing his decision that Ms. Brown had acknowledged committing “a horrific crime at the age of 16.”

“Yet imposing a life sentence on a juvenile that would require her to serve at least 51 years before even being eligible for parole consideration is too harsh, especially in light of the extraordinary steps Ms. Brown has taken to rebuild her life,” he said.

Mr. Haslam told NBC News/Today on Wednesday that Ms. Brown “really had done what we hope happens when people are incarcerated.”

“In the end,” he said, it was decided that “society was better off with Cyntoia out of prison.”

Ms. Brown was one of nearly 200 people sentenced as minors to the state’s 60-year mandatory minimum life sentence, the toughest in the nation, according to the Sentencing Project, an advocacy group.