Dana Comes At Night, Lisa Brueggeman, and Stacy Markus play instrumental roles in the Adult Drug Court program located in Polson, Montana, which serves Lake County defendants receiving treatment for crimes relating to substance use disorder. Along with more than half of the participants, all three women are Indigenous. Dana is enrolled in the Blackfeet Nation, and Lisa and Stacy are members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes.

Indigenous defendants face the additional hurdle of navigating the complex generational trauma resulting from colonization. This was true for Dana, Lisa, and Stacy during their personal justice involvement. Today, they serve as examples of women from their communities who survived the system. They draw on their shared experiences with participants to infuse sincerity, truth, and understanding into the program.

The Montana Innocence Project had the opportunity to attend one of their Thursday evening group sessions. The impact of their leadership as people who were once in the same positions as the participants sitting around the table with them was evident the entire time. In today’s episode, you will hear from each of the women about how they found themselves working in the same courtroom they were once sentenced in and the power of that dynamic.