Prof. Murray’s Paper Quoted in the New Yorker about Second Chances for Incarcerated Individuals

A New Yorker Magazine article addressing second chances for incarcerated individuals quoted a paper that was lead-authored by Professor JaneAnne Murray, Director of the Law School's Clemency Project.  The New Yorker article focused on one individual (not represented by Murray) in the large population of incarcerated individuals who committed the crimes of which they were guilty but for which they received excessive sentences, often ones they would not receive today.  This is the population that is the focus of Murray's Clemency Project and her clemency clinic, which is a component of her Project.  The article mentioned judicial "second look" legislation as a possible reform legislation for those currently serving onerous sentences, quoting and linking to Murray's paper (co-authored with Sean Hecker, Michael Skocpol and Marissa Elkins for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)): “Society as a whole ultimately bears the substantial monetary and human costs of its decision to warehouse human beings.”   

The NACDL paper accompanied model judicial "second look" legislation for states drafted by the NACDL Second Look Taskforce of which Murray was the co-chair.  This legislation was, in turn, inspired by the rewrite of the sentencing provisions of the Model Penal Code (MPL), spearheaded by Law School Professor Kevin Reitz.  The new MPL proposed a principle of legislation of a judicial "second look" for longterm sentences after 15 years but did not actually include model legislation - leaving this up the states.  The NACDL TaskForce took up that gauntlet by drafting model "second look" legislation for the states.