Annemarie Foy ’26 and Emily Westover ‘26, both clinic student directors, worked throughout the fall semester of 2024 on Marcus Allen Brown’s application to have his 436-month sentence for second-degree murder commuted to time he had already served. The clinic advocates for individuals serving disproportionately long sentences.
The students met with Brown several times at the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Moose Lake. During those visits, accompanied by Professor JaneAnne Murray, the clinic’s director, they learned from Brown how he had dedicated himself to educational and self-improvement opportunities while incarcerated as well as about his plans to re-enter society.
Westover spoke on Brown’s behalf before the state Clemency Review Commission, which recommended against commutation. She made a similar presentation in Brown’s favor again when the Minnesota Board of Pardons conducted a hearing on his application in January.
The Board of Pardons—comprised of Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison ’90, and Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson ’82—also heard from Brown by video from Moose Lake. Supporters who spoke on behalf of Brown included his wife, one of their daughters, and even the homicide victim’s father. Walz (whose assent was necessary) and Ellison voted in favor of commutation while Hudson opposed it.
“We were very happy for Marcus,” Westover says. “He has grown so much since the time of the offense, and that’s something that we really wanted to highlight.”
“It was an amazing moment for his family, and it was an honor to be there with them as they got that news,” Foy said. “Professor Murray being able to take on these cases for free really makes such a meaningful difference to people who have been living with their convictions for decades.”
An Extraordinary Example of Prison Rehabilitation
Brown’s case, Murray says, was ideal for clinic students to work on because it exemplifies “the particularly punitive charging and sentencing policies” common in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Brown had faced a sentence of life in prison without parole on a first-degree murder charge stemming from an August 2004 incident in which he fired several gunshots into a crowd that was fighting with members of his family outside their home. The gunfire killed one man and injured another.
Under an agreement with the state, however, Brown, then 22, pleaded guilty instead to second-degree intentional murder. He avoided a life sentence but received a 432-month sentence that far exceeded the state’s presumptive sentence of 306 months.
Brown’s case represented “an extraordinary example of prison rehabilitation,” Murray says.
Brown had no disciplinary incidents during his last 10 years in prison. He earned his high school equivalency diploma and took college classes toward a degree in human services. He completed vocational programs in upholstery, printing, and carpentry and served a student tutor in that skill. He committed himself to restorative justice and wrote several apology letters to his victims.
Released in July, Brown now lives with his wife of 25 years in the home they co-own in north Minneapolis. The couple has three children, whom Brown spoke with in daily phone calls during his two decades in prison. He has job offers in the Twin Cities and in Texas, a possible future destination.
In a separate matter, Foy and Westover also represented a Minnesota man who was seeking a pardon for a decades-old offense. Foy spoke about his case to the clemency commission, which supported his application, and to the pardon board, which voted unanimously in favor of a pardon.
“Professor Murray and Emily would tell you that I’m a crier, and I certainly teared up knowing that both of them were going to be able to move forward in their lives,” Foy says of Brown and the pardoned man.
The Clemency Project Clinic combined Foy’s interest in civil rights law and criminal defense law. After graduation she will work as a judicial law clerk for a federal district judge. “Even though I won’t be representing clients there, I hope to still bring that empathy and thoughtfulness to the cases that the judge is working through,” Foy says.
After working in civil legal aid for the last two summers, Westover wanted to explore criminal law through the Clemency Project Clinic. She is working this year at Southern Minnesota Regional Law Services through the Law School’s Saeks Public Interest Residency Program. She will have a guaranteed, full-time paid legal position there next year through this innovative program.
Westover enrolled at Minnesota Law in large part because of the robust support and experiential learning opportunities available for students interested in public law.
“I was really interested in the work that the Clemency Project Clinic does in providing legal advocacy but also providing some storytelling and humanity in someone’s case as well,” Westover says.