When her mother died of a prescription-drug overdose, 24-year-old Morgan Godvin, a four-year heroin user, continued to shoot up, sinking ever deeper into hopelessness, grief and depression. On March 28, 2014, she sold a gram of heroin to her friend Justin Delong, who overdosed and died. Godvin, indicted in federal court on charges of delivery resulting in death, was sentenced to five years in prison. She spent 20 months in county jail, two years at Dublin Federal Correctional Institution in California and a year in community confinement.
Upon her release a year ago, Godvin, 29, enrolled as a community health education major at the OHSU-Portland State University School of Public Health, where she is earning a 4.0 GPA. With the Spanish fluency she gained in prison, she works as a medical interpreter.
Godvin was sentenced under what’s known as the Len Bias Law, named for a Maryland basketball star who died of a cocaine overdose in 1986. It is intended to ensnare big dope dealers and reduce rates of addiction and overdose. In reality, it more often catches family, friends and other people battling addiction. According to a 2018 Pew Charitable Trust report, higher rates of drug imprisonment do not translate to lower rates of drug use, arrests or overdose deaths.
Oregon House Bill 2797, introduced in the 2019 session, like the Len Bias Law, imposes mandatory minimums for homicide by overdose. It requires a sentence of four to 10 years for a person convicted of unlawful delivery or manufacture of an illegal drug that results in the death of another person. HB 2797 died in the House but could be reintroduced for a vote in 2020.
A fierce advocate for prison reform and an outspoken critic of mandatory minimum sentencing for homicide by overdose, Godvin spoke candidly of her past addiction and how having money allowed her to rehabilitate herself while serving time.
Victoria Lewis: HB 2797, also known as Taylor’s Law, is named for Taylor Martinek, a Jesuit High School and Portland State University football player who became addicted to opioids after a shoulder injury. He died of an overdose at the age of 24 in 2017. What do you say to the argument that without Taylor’s Law, Oregon drug dealers face no significant consequence?
Morgan Godvin: Today in Oregon, delivery of a controlled substance is a class A felony punishable by a years-long prison sentence, depending on previous criminal history. Imprisonment and the lifelong brand of a felony are significant consequences.
The vast majority of dealers I knew were users first and foremost. They turned to dealing to maintain their habit, often out of an aversion to crimes that required you to victimize someone, such as theft or fraud. The archetypical villainous drug dealer is a myth.
What is the goal? Is it to save lives and reduce rates of overdose, or simply find someone to blame and punish? Giving people even longer sentences won’t save lives.
Lewis: What would be your objection to rewriting HB 2797 to instruct law enforcement to use it only to prosecute high-level manufacturers and dealers?
Godvin: When you give law enforcement a tool to be used sparingly, they will always find ways to overuse or abuse it. A detective or a district attorney will perform legal acrobatics to stretch the definition of “high level” and ensnare even the most peripheral of participants. Will society actually be safer if their sentence is 10 years versus three? We have been sold a lie that punishment is the cure to addiction. We have been getting bad results. The cure to addiction is compassion, not vengeance.
Lewis: Looking back on your years of addiction, you said, “I seriously entertained the idea of voluntarily living in my car. I wanted a way where I could keep using (heroin) in peace without someone constantly harassing or shaming me about my use.” You assert that addiction and overdose deaths are a public health crisis, not a criminal crisis. What would it have taken to get you to stop using if you hadn’t been arrested?
Godvin: The defining moment for me is when I got my first possession-of-heroin felony in Multnomah County. Any hope I had for the future was snatched from my soul with that felony conviction. I knew I’d never be able to go to paramedic school, despite already having acquired many prerequisites and my EMT certification from Portland Community College. What life could I possibly have now that I was branded? Addiction had brought me to the brink of desperation, but the conviction tipped me over the edge. I gave up and resigned myself to a life and death in heroin addiction. What is the point of getting clean, I thought, if I can never overcome the felony?
I realize that now in Oregon, that possession of a controlled substance would have been a misdemeanor. The message society gives people who use drugs is still the same. You are “bad”; you are a “criminal.” We are forced to isolate and suffer in solitude, driven away by layers of stigma and shame. I began using because I was suffering internal pain, then the cues I received from society only amplified my pain. Then structural barriers robbed me of all hope. This is not compassion; this is not love. To recover, we need compassion and love.
Lewis: Your mom died in December of 2013 from an overdose of her Veterans Affairs-prescribed opioids. You describe yourself as “drowning in grief, using large amounts of heroin, actively trying to inject every last dollar of mom’s life insurance, praying for death, sleeping most the day, not showering or even leaving my apartment.” A few months after her death, you were arrested. How did you face your grief in prison, without drugs?
Godvin: Head on. It was the most raw hurt I’ve ever experienced. I wrote about my pain with a shank-proof flex pen until my fingers ached. I envisioned hanging myself with the phone cord from the officer’s desk. I paid a woman named Ruby, a honeybun, to sing “Landslide” because it reminded me of mom, and I wept. I don’t remember when it began to get easier, but it did. I realized that our complex, messy relationship was full of unconditional love and little else matters. I grieved in jail, detoxing off of heroin, while being told I was facing 20 years in prison. If I can survive that, I can survive anything. Thank you, mom, for that final powerful lesson.
COMMENTARY: Reflections from jail: Is addiction a choice? If only it were that simple
Lewis: You say that sharing 100 square feet of cell space and a toilet with three women who only spoke Spanish motivated you to learn Spanish. There is a Czech proverb: Learn a new language and get a new soul. What about your Spanish “self” surprises you?
Godvin: In Spanish, I am not shy or reserved. I can say anything I want to say. I’m not plagued by inhibitions like I am in English. Thanks to prison, my English self is considerably less shy too. I’m looking at you, toilet in a cell with two strangers. My Spanish self was never bullied or addicted to heroin. My Spanish self is free and confident.
Lewis: You say having access to money (your mom’s life insurance) in prison allowed you to rehabilitate yourself. What do people in prison need most to help them to re-enter society?
Godvin: Money before, during and after prison. Poverty is the single biggest driving factor that lands people in prison. People need safety, shelter, social support and economic opportunities in the first place so they don’t end up in prison.
FURTHER READING: How America’s justice system comes down harder on people in poverty
It is painfully unfair that I, as a person with a low risk of recidivism, was able to further reduce my risk of recidivism by maintaining constant contact with my loved ones and the world at large. Meanwhile, the people who need the most support get the least. Prisons should not be places where such scarcity prevails. Prisons should issue toothpaste, deodorant and shoes. Why are those things all for sale? People in prison are making 20 cents an hour. Yet a phone call costs between $2 and $15. People need humane ways to maintain their social connections. They need phone calls to their family – especially to their children. This would have the added benefit of lowering recidivism rates and keeping our communities safer. If you want people to work on their underlying mental health issues or educate themselves, you need to allow them to focus on something more than day-to-day survival. Toilet paper should not be a precious resource. American mass incarceration is a domestic human rights crisis.
FURTHER READING: Inside Oregon’s prison workforce
Lewis: What can we expect to hear from you in the future?
Godvin: Currently I am writing a book about my odd life. I hope to publish another op-ed or essay this year and do a formal speaking event, going wherever my activism takes me. Mostly I just want people to stop dying of overdose when overdose death is so preventable.