Don't Tell My Mother...She'll Worry: A Look Inside the Criminal Justice System

Don’t Tell My Mother…She’ll Worry: A Look Inside the Criminal Justice System is a disturbing true story of a mother’s dramatic experience in the federal courts. In June 1998, all Mary A. Smith knew to be decent and true crumbled around her. Michael, her son, had been arrested with a fellow American and four Thai men in Cambodia by Anti Narcotic Police. He was held in a Cambodian prison for over five months in connection with an international conspiracy to transport three tons of marijuana into the United States. Michael received a twelve-and-a-half year sentence in the United States even though evidence was presented that proved him to be a minor player. As many years passed, Smith and her family would transform from proud Americans to disbelieving citizens. In thirty-seven chapters, readers learn how the federal government failed Michael, how federal agents were complicit in criminal activity, and how justice was denied to a young man whose life had been filled with promise and hope.