To be forgiven by the President

Now that I am back at the office, I am trying to do as much pro bono work as I can. My transgender name change case and a couple of immigration cases are still ongoing. I also signed up for the Clemency Project, which helps federal prisoners who would likely have received a shorter sentence if they had been sentenced today get clemency from the President. It is not easy to be pardoned, the criteria are so strict that after completing the training, I had a feeling anyone who qualifies should be submitted for a Presidential medal rather than a pardon.

Still, it is a great initiative.

The vast majority those eligible were convicted for low-level, non-violent drug offenses based on brutal and cruel sentencing guidelines spawned by Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs in the 1980s. These guidelines gave judges no choice but to mete out extremely severe punishments for relatively harmless offenses under certain circumstances. In recent years, changes were made to these and many of those same offenses would not be so harshly punished. The changes were not made retro-active, which means that thousands of people convicted under the now changed rules are still languishing in prison for no good reason. The Clemency Project was founded when the Obama administration came out with its Clemency Initiative to try and treat these people fairly and give them a path to freedom.

The crazy unfairness of the War on Drugs has been clear to me since law school and especially my trip to Bolivia in 2004; the Coca Museum in La Paz was an eye-opening experience. Most recently, reading Johan Hari's very well-researched and moving Chasing the Scream (I highly recommend!) completely convinced me that drugs should all be legalized, controlled and taxed just like cigarettes and alcohol. That is extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon, but at least I will try to help some of those who made a few mistakes and had their lives ruined by these wrong-headed policies.

The Clemency Project is overloaded with work and they are trying to get as many claims as possible in front of Obama  before his term ends. Hopefully I will get a case soon.