On Tuesday, a Russian court rejected Brittney Griner’s appeal of her nine-year prison sentence for drug possession and smuggling. This latest update in her case slims the scope of her chances to return home to the United States. Griner now must look towards calculated discussions between the U.S. and Russia when their diplomatic relations are the most fraught in decades.
Although her rejected appeal maintains her sentence, the court agreed to recalculate Griner’s prison time to reflect what she has already served in pre-trial detention. Every day served in pre-trial detention accounts for one and a half days in prison, meaning she will have to serve about eight years in prison.
Since her arrest at the Moscow airport in February, the Biden administration has been engaged in tense negotiations to bring the WNBA star home. Her arrest came just days before Russia invaded Ukraine, which entangled Griner’s case in the broader context of war and only complicated ongoing international discussions between the U.S. and Russia.
These discussions are not irregular occurrences, however. The U.S. conducts routine international negotiations for intelligence and other desired possessions. Sometimes, those desired possessions are human beings. In order to maintain leverage in these negotiations, countries on both sides capture important prisoners and hold on to them until they can be traded for what they are seeking.
Robert English, an international relations professor at USC, emphasized that this system of international bartering is constantly at play behind the curtain of diplomacy.
“The Brittney Griner case has become a pawn, a political football, in relations between the United States and the Russian Federation,” he said. “It’s horse trading with human lives.”
Griner’s wellness is not the only thing at stake in these conversations. The U.S. also hopes to bring home former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan by offering the exchange of high-profile Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout—also known as the “merchant of death.”
Griner, center for the Phoenix Mercury and two-time Olympic gold medalist was originally in Russia playing for UMMC Ekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason. An all-star athlete like Griner going overseas to find off-season work may seem strange, but she’s in the company of other top players like Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart. Since players of their caliber can earn more than quadruple their base WNBA salary by playing in Russia, it’s easier to ignore complicated politics and safety concerns. Friends, family and supporters of Griner have taken their distress over the matter to the public sphere.
“It has been 253 days since our friend, Brittney Griner, has been wrongfully detained in Russia. It is time for her to come home,” tweeted American basketball player Breanna Stewart of the Seattle Storm. Tagging the White House, the president, and the vice president, Stewart writes “we are paying attention and we are counting on you.”
Stephen Curry halted the Golden State warrior championship ring ceremony to call attention to the fact that on that day, October 18, Griner spent her 32nd birthday behind Russian bars.
“We want to continue to use our platform and the opportunity to shout out a very special member of the basketball community,” Curry told the crowd. “We hope that she comes home soon, that everybody’s doing their part to get her home,” he said.
Cherelle Griner, Brittney Griner’s wife, shared her anguish with CBS Mornings in early October, “She’s very afraid about being left and forgotten in Russia, or just completely used to the point of her detriment.”
So why Griner? There are thousands of U.S. prisoners being held in overseas confinement. Why has Griner become this political symbol for the condition of U.S. international relations? Professor English insisted it is because of her intersectional identity and heightened visibility as a star of the sports industry.
“Brittney Griner is African American. Brittney Griner is a woman. She is also LGBT. And she was carrying marijuana or cannabis oil,” he said. “And the Russians know perfectly well that those are incredibly hot-button issues in the United States. They probably see that the publicity surrounding this case actually shines a negative light on the U.S., not just them.”
In early August, Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison after officials found cartridges of cannabis oil in her luggage. Now, the threat of serving out this sentence in a Russian penal colony has become all the more palpable—and no less terrifying. These penal colonies are punishment-based facilities where convicts endure forced labor and isolation.
At her trial, Griner presented a doctor’s letter issued on the behalf of the Arizona Department of Health saying that she had been recommended cannabis to treat pain. But Griner is being held on Russian laws, not U.S. laws. Although U.S. federal marijuana legislation has recently relaxed with the Biden administration’s pardoning of possession incarcerations, Russian laws remain rigid.
Professor English noted that the Russian prison system is not the only harsh punishment system in the world.
“If you shine a spotlight on the penal system of the United States, as opposed to Russia, we’re not a whole lot better. We really aren’t,” he says. “And Putin knows that, or at least his diplomats know that. They’re trying to turn this around and say, ‘now you care about Brittney Griner? How about the thousands and thousands [in your prisons]?’”