Adrianne Miller, born and raised in Montgomery, was in year seven of a 15-year sentence in 2021 for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute meth and possession of a list I chemical when she got news that changed her life.
President Donald Trump commuted the remainder of Miller’s sentence on his last day in office on Jan. 20, 2021.
Miller told 1819 News in an interview on Monday she found out about her clemency through a prison employee and messages from family.
“Whenever they took me to booking, I still didn’t know what was going on…my case managers and my counselors said, ‘Girl, you did it. You’re going home. You got clemency. You’re the only one in this whole complex that got clemency. We have to have you off the compound by 4:00.’ I was like, ‘oh my gosh.’ I hit the floor,” Miller said. “Next thing I knew I was packing my stuff and taking what few little items I had and they had arranged for me to go to my sisters in Montgomery and I did. I have been able to rebuild my life since then.”
Miller said she was raised with “obviously a lot of love in my home,” and her “story it doesn’t come from like a broken home.”
“It just comes from choices that I made growing up. I got in with the wrong crowd when I was around 15 or 16,” Miller said. “I started off obviously with marijuana. It’s the gateway drug. It turned into the harder drugs and it just became a cycle. Then it became an addiction. Throughout my teen years and through my early 20s in and out of jail and rehabs. My family did everything they could for me. It became a habit to where I knew how to numb the pain from whatever emotions I was going through. Of course, the crowd, the lifestyle, getting caught up in that…it just became a full-blown addiction. My family did everything they could and at some point they just, you know, kind of let me take the reins. I just down-spiraled down from there.”
After a year in rehab in Mobile, she remained drug-free for nearly a decade until she and her husband divorced around 2013.
“It was a pretty rough divorce. It was my first divorce,” Miller said. “I’d never gone through anything like that. I’d been clean probably eight or nine years. Once I got divorced, the only thing I knew was to go back to that lifestyle. Got reintroduced to the people that I started with back in my teens. That was in 2013, and I started going really hard. Meth was my drug of choice growing up the whole time.
Miller eventually lost her job in logistics in Mobile and was indicted on federal drug charges in 2014.
“I knew people on both ends who had the money and who had the drugs. I became addicted to the needle. I just hit rock bottom,” Miller said.
Miller started her 15-year sentence at the age of 36. She followed the advice of fellow inmate Alice Johnson, who received a pardon from Trump in 2020, about how to petition for clemency.
Miller also credits former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman and the Clemency for All Non-Violent Drug Offenders (CAN-DO) Foundation, an organization she remains active with, for her reduced sentence.
Since her release in 2021, Miller said she’s spent the time catching up with family, making amends and beginning a new life.
“I landed a job at Bobcat, built my credit up, was able to walk on a car lot for the first time in my life and buy a car. Now, I’m in the process of purchasing my first home. I’ve just been living my best life. I’m also still a very heavy advocate for prison reform,” Miller said. "I could not be more excited about my life and all the amazing ways God has blessed it."
Miller told 1819 News she plans to attend the ALGOP’s summer dinner, where Trump will be the keynote speaker on Friday in Montgomery, and hopes she gets the opportunity to meet him.
“I would tell him thank you. Thank you for giving me this opportunity,” Miller said. “Thank you for believing in the people that you trusted to look over my petitions and to give me this opportunity. I would tell him thank you for trusting your people and that they trusted me enough to give me this opportunity. I would love to share my success with him and just tell him thank you. Thank you for having a heart. Thank you for having compassion. Thank you for being involved and bending your ear and listening to this type of cause because not everybody does. There are so many people behind the laws that have these harsh sentences that don’t deserve the harsh sentences. I’m so appreciative of the heart that he had in this.”
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email caleb.taylor@1819News.com.
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