Blind Plea
5.0/5
Critic Rating
In 2017, Deven Grey, a young mother, shot and killed her abusive partner in a remote trailer in rural Shelby County, Alabama. She claimed self-defense and filed a Stand Your Ground claim. Instead of freedom, she was handed a “blind plea” – an option to take an unknown sentence in exchange for pleading guilty. As a Black woman who shot and killed a white man in Alabama, she did the only thing she could: She took the plea. Deven’s sentence became the final link in a chain of deceit, haunted land, generational trauma, false identity, coercive control, and a broken justice system. ...
Critic Reviews
Score: 5
The Crime Writers Squad • Crime Writers On • Jun 15, 2023
"...heartbreakingly detailed...Get those rage walking shoes on, because this looks like injustice piled on top of injustice."
Score: 5
Lauren Passell • Podcast The Newsletter • May 22, 2023
"...it’d be impossible not to be sucked in. At twenty-five years old, she chose to go with a Blind Plea deal, something almost unheard of that requires the defendant to plead guilty without knowing the sentence, all to avoid her life being in the hands of a majority white jury trial in the South. The first few episodes are a whirlwind—Deven’s story, how it was twisted by her boyfriend’s other girlfriend and what happens when we don’t deal with generations of trauma. It’s gutting."
