Father of Prof. Murray’s Clemency Project Client Writes Op-Ed in Des Moines Register on Her Behalf  

John Owen, the father of Mary Anne Locke, a non-violent, low-level client of Professor JaneAnne Murray’s Clemency Project at the Law School, has written an eloquent plea for mercy on her behalf. Highlighting President Lincoln’s liberal use of his clemency power, he describes his family’s anguish at seeing her sentenced to 19.5 years for her subordinate role in a drug conspiracy that would have likely resulted in 1/4 of that sentence in most other districts in the U.S. He notes that Ms. Locke was represented in her two clemency petitions (before President Obama and President Trump, respectively) by the Law School’s Clemency Project, and, while a life-long Republican, expresses his appreciation to President Obama for bringing executive clemency back to its roots (“to address systemic unfairness, while also acknowledging the humanity of each person behind bars”). He notes that he is “also buoyed by [President] Trump’s recent clemency decisions, and his pronouncements that he plans to use it even more expansively.” He concludes: “But nothing beats a legislative solution that grants my daughter—and the thousands of prisoners like her—a “second look” at the severity and fairness of their sentence, in a public proceeding, with a judge and an advocate. I want a chance to say in open court how much I love and believe in her, and her children similarly want a chance to say publicly how much they want her back in their lives.”