Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP is currently working with the “Clemency Project 2014,” an undertaking sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union and Families Against Mandatory Minimums formed in response to Deputy Attorney General James Cole’s request for pro bono legal services to assist nonviolent longtime federal prisoners who would likely have received shorter sentences had they been sentenced today. Litigation Partner Michael Shapiro and associates Melissa J. Erwin, Alexander Malyshev, Jacob Nemon and Hugo Arenas are screening preliminary applications submitted on behalf of inmates by other pro bono lawyers. Petitions that meet the Project’s criteria are reviewed by a national Steering Committee and then by the Pardon Attorney’s Office of the U.S. Department of Justice; petitions approved by that Office are sent to the President for action. Mr. Shapiro’s team at Carter Ledyard has reviewed approximately a dozen applications and has forwarded all but one petition to the Steering Committee. Nationwide, many tens of thousands of applications are being prepared and screened in an effort to mitigate the United States’ world-leading rate of incarceration.
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