Just before we published this story, I reached out to the DA again for updates. He had received several more sheriff referrals for these cases since we spoke, but he decided after learning about our findings that his approach isn’t working, and said he won’t prosecute them anymore.

Brandy’s case would have been the first known case of its kind to go to trial. But on that same call, the DA told me he’d decided to drop the charges against her. I waited for weeks to talk to Brandy again, until I knew the judge had signed the dismissal order.

I researched the success rate of the intervention court in that district. It has the second-worst completion rate in the state with nearly one-in-five participants unsuccessful in 2023—a stat I had to calculate myself since the court does not do its own performance evaluation in its reports.

I quickly searched the rest. Tentative release: 11/4/2038. Tentative release: 3/8/2042. A fourth is serving a 5-year sentence.

But when I flipped the page, I found a warrant for her arrest issued a year later for failing to conduct her weekly check-in. Before I even finished reading the files, I plugged her name into MDOC’s inmate search. She was there. Tentative release: 2/18/2039.

Sure enough, she’d been ordered to drug court, a rigorous intervention program. This was in 2019. To avoid her prison sentence, she’d need to comply with the program’s 22 strict conditions for five years.

I met Brandy’s alleged domestic violence victim — a blue-eyed, blonde haired 4-year-old named Remi. A lot of the kids I meet in the field are shy. Not Remi. She enthusiastically took me on a tour of her bedroom. She said she likes to read and play dress up with her best friend.

In June, I drove up to Sebastopol, MS to interview Brandy Moore, a mother of four who was recently arrested and facing a possible 20-year prison sentence. Her crime: using drugs while around 15-weeks pregnant in 2019. At the time, she was considering an abortion, which was still legal then.