Summary

In 2013, Brittany met with Sam Sheldon, who gave her advice on obtaining presidential clemency for her pro bono clients. As Sam explained, the Constitution gave the president full clemency powers—either to fully exonerate incarcerated people from their crime or to end their sentences—but the process was opaque and unpredictable. Additionally, recent presidents had granted very few clemencies—less than twenty each, except for Clinton who granted 61 (but many of those were political allies). Obama had granted even fewer than his predecessors.

Brittany realized that her client Donel Clark, one of the defendants in the Mike Wilson case, would make a good candidate for clemency because his sentence was unjust and he had shown self-improvement while in prison. As a young man, Donel had worked two jobs to provide for his wife and daughter, one in the meat department of...