Brittney Griner Has Her Nine Year Sentence Upheld

On February 17, 2022 , Brittney Griner was detained in Russia for possession of marajuana. While traveling through  Sheremetyevo Airport outside of Moscow, customs officials say they found a vape cartridge containing hash oil. From there, Griner was charged with large scale transportation of drugs in August and sentenced with nine years in a penal colony.

Recently, the sentence of nine years was upheld in appeals court, much to the disappointment of Griner, Griner’s legal team, and her family. Griner expressed her concerns of having to serve the full nine years and not being able to come home, a concern that her lawyer, Alexandr D. Boykov, stated to The New York Times, “She is not yet absolutely convinced that America will be able to take her home. She is very worried about what the price of that will be, and she is afraid that she will have to serve the whole sentence here in Russia… She suffers a lot without her family because she hasn’t seen them for so long and it’s very difficult to talk to them in any way.”

Brittney Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, called out the US State Department for their inaction, saying, “[H]ow can I trust you to actually be negotiating on my wife’s behalf to come home?”

President Biden has also made statements that he would speak to Putin about the release of  Griner and another wrongfully imprisoned individual, Paul Whelan, in the G20 summit coming up in November. His statement to CNN said, “Look, I have no intention of meeting with him, but look, if he came to me at the G20 and said, ‘I want to talk about the release of Griner,’ I would meet with him, but that would depend… He’s acted brutally, I think he’s committed war crimes, and so I don’t… see any rationale to meet with him now.”

In lieu of any action, Griner will begin serving her nine-year sentence.