In the fall of her 2L year, Amy Cohen ’24 took Professor JaneAnne Murray’s evidence class. At the time, Cohen was weighing her clinical choices and Murray encouraged her to consider the Clemency Project Clinic, which advocates for individuals serving disproportionately long prison sentences.
“JaneAnne said to me, ‘There are many people are serving longer-than-needed sentences,’” recalls Cohen. “That stuck with me and drew me to the clinic.”
Cohen, newly graduated from Minnesota Law, was a co-student director of the Clemency Project Clinic along with Maggie Kovach ’24. February and March were particularly busy for the clinic, with four parole hearings for clients who were juveniles at the time of their offenses. Murray, the clinic’s director, explains that they took the clients on for clemency purposes. However, the Minnesota Pardon Board deferred the cases because all four ended up with a new parole process authorized by a statute passed in 2023, which makes juveniles who were given long sentences eligible for parole after 15 years instead of 30.
With three parole hearings on one day in February, Murray’s students, including Ian Mallery ’24, Bethany Jewison ’24, Sam Buisman ’25, and Carlisle Ghirardini ’24 fanned out to three prisons, with Murray and Cohen ’24 appearing remotely from Murray’s office. The clinic had positive outcomes for two of the four clients – “J” and “S.”
Emily Doyle ’22 co-drafted J’s memorandum in support of his petition for clemency. At age 16, he was part of a fatal shooting by four individuals as a result of a gang rift. At his February parole hearing, the DOC commissioner determined that J, now 26 with an associate degree, would have their sentence “stepped down” over two years, with work release in a year.
While working on the case, Doyle discovered an interest in criminal law, which she has been able to explore in her current job as a law clerk with the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota.
“Working on J’s case gave me a unique perspective on the criminal justice system and humanized the process,” she says.
For Cohen and Kovach, who are pursuing public defense law, their client, S, was convicted of a fatal shooting that an older man coerced him to commit when he was 15. He now is 39 and serving his 24th year of a mandatory life sentence. Cohen and Kovach wrote a commutation petition highlighting his exemplary record in prison, including earning a high school diploma, taking college classes, and working to implement a restorative justice program.
“At his sentencing, the victim's mother made a victim impact statement and told him that she wanted him to use the time in prison to better himself,” says Cohen. “He took those words to heart.”
Cohen, Murray, and Anna Mitchell ’24 traveled to Moose Lake for S’s internal DOC parole review hearing in March. At the hearing, the DOC commissioner decided S would be moved to a minimum-security facility for six months, followed by work release for six months, with the commissioner strongly recommending S be released in a year, says Cohen.
“With clemency and post-conviction relief work, you're filling out somebody's story,” Kovach says. “That doesn't mean it's an excuse or a justification, but it's context. Getting to know somebody on such a personal level makes them more human. It’s easy to be distanced from that and see one bad act somebody's done. What’s so important about this work is you're giving a story, but then the way we end it is, here's what he's going to contribute to society if you give him a chance. He has family support, he has housing figured out, he has a job lined up. It ends on a hopeful note. If somebody's given the opportunity, they can take all of this and turn it into something meaningful and productive.”