The Innocent Sister

By Arlene Johnson

At the age of 16, Sherri Robinson would become an aunt to her brother's infant who was about to be born. Her brother, unknown to her, planned to commit armed robbery but only told her that he wanted to purchase a present for the child. As Sherri wanted to purchase a gift for the baby herself, she accompanied her brother to the jewelry store never realizing that her brother's intentions weren't exactly honorable.

He pulled a gun in the commission of the robbery and somehow, the owner was killed. At 16, Sherri was an accomplice to a murder.

The judge gave her life in prison without the possibility of parole. Is it because of the law or is it because of the color of her skin? Sherri Robinson is an African American.

Sherri has completed rehabilitative courses in order to improve her typing skills and desperately wants to use those skills to better the lives of herself and her family who are scattered in two states. Sherri is incarcerated in Pennsylvania in what she describes as a "cold dark place" with her family in Florida and Connecticut.

Sherri informs me that the lawyer to whom she was assigned by the court twenty one years ago was later disbarred. The judge wouldn't listen to anything he said anyway. Sherri Robinson had never committed any crime in her young life. There is no reason to expect that she would have committed any crime. She was another innocent victim of a homicide that killed the store owner because she felt that she could trust her brother.

Later, Sherri would learn the mitigating circumstances that her brother was dealt but it is Sherri who I am particularly anxious to free. She's the innocent bystander in this sad tale.