U.S. police chiefs group apologizes for ‘historical mistreatment’ of non-whites

From [HERE] The president of America’s largest police management organization on Monday issued a formal apology to the nation’s minority population “for the actions of the past and the role that our profession has played in society’s historical mistreatment of communities of color.”

Terrence M. Cunningham, the chief of police in Wellesley, Mass., delivered his remarks at the convention in San Diego of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, whose membership includes 23,000 police officials in the United States. The statement was issued on behalf of the IACP, and comes as police executives continue to grapple with tense relationships between officers and minority groups in the wake of high-profile civilian deaths in New York, South Carolina, Minnesota and elsewhere, the sometimes violent citizen protests which have ensued as well as the ambush killings of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

Police chiefs have long recognized the need to maintain good relations with their communities, of all races, and not allow an us-versus-them mentality to take root, either in their rank-and-file officer corps or in the neighborhoods where their citizens live. Cunningham’s comments are an acknowledgement of police departments’ past role in exacerbating tensions and a way to move forward and improve community relations nationwide. Two top civil rights groups on Monday commended Cunningham for taking an important first step in acknowledging the problem.

“Events over the past several years,” Cunningham said, “have caused many to question the actions of our officers and has tragically undermined the trust that the public must and should have in their police departments…The history of the law enforcement profession is replete with examples of bravery, self-sacrifice, and service to the community. At its core, policing is a noble profession.”

But Cunningham added, “At the same time, it is also clear that the history of policing has also had darker periods.” He cited laws enacted by state and federal governments which “have required police officers to perform many unpalatable tasks…While this is no longer the case, this dark side of our shared history has created a multigenerational — almost inherited — mistrust between many communities of color and their law enforcement agencies.”

Cunningham continued, “While we obviously cannot change the past, it is clear that we must change the future…For our part, the first step is for law enforcement and the IACP to acknowledge and apologize for the actions of the past and the role that our profession has played in society’s historical mistreatment of communities of color.”

He concluded, “It is my hope that, by working together, we can break this historic cycle of mistrust and build a better and safer future for us all.”

Jeffery Robinson, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, applauded Cunningham’s statement. “It seems to me that this is a very significant admission,” Robinson said, “and a very significant acknowledgement of what much of America has known for some time about the historical relationship between police and communities of color. The fact someone high in the law enforcement community has said this is significant and I applaud it because it is long overdue. And I think it’s a necessary first step to them trying to change these relationships.”

Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said, “I think Chief Cunningham correctly identifies the need to acknowledge and apologize as a first step, and I don’t want to diminish how important the first step is,” because many police organizations have been reluctant to grapple with racial issues. She said the Legal Defense Fund has been speaking with the IACP about the role the Legal Defense Fund can play in improving policing. “They know that there’s a problem,” Ifill said. “They know that it’s a complicated and difficult one. They know there are problems in their own departments. And now we’re trying to take tentative steps toward what we hope will be productive measures.”

After his comments, Cunningham told The Post in an e-mail that, “We have 16,000 police chiefs and law enforcement officials gathered here in San Diego and it is an important message to spread. Communities and law enforcement need to begin a healing process and this is a bridge to begin that dialogue. If we are brave enough to collectively deliver this message, we will build a better and safer future for our communities and our law enforcement officers. Too many lives have been lost already, and this must end. It is my hope that many other law enforcement executives will deliver this same message to their local communities, particularly those segments of their communities that lack trust and feel disenfranchised.”

The IACP members present for Cunningham’s speech gave him a standing ovation, IACP spokeswoman Sarah Guy said. Cunningham made the remarks on behalf of the membership, Guy said.

“I was one of the first ones to stand up” for the ovation, said Perry Tarrant, assistant chief of the Seattle police and president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. “I think there was high value in the apology, coming from the president of the IACP, that will bring folks that were reticent to come to the table for a conversation, to now consider doing so.” Tarrant said he had recently spoken to the mother of Philando Castile, killed by an officer in Minnesota while his girlfriend live-streamed the aftermath on Facebook, and that an apology to her by the police chief of the department “inspired her to make this part of her life’s work going forward.”

The national Fraternal Order of Police was not overly impressed by Cunningham’s statement. Chuck Canterbury, the police union’s national president, said, “Words and apologies do not adequately address the current issues facing law enforcement and the communities that we serve,” Canterbury said. “Seeking workable solutions to issues that affect us all so directly is a much more worthy endeavor, one which will do far more to foster goodwill and understanding between law enforcement and the community at large. Proactive steps that address the real concerns — urban decay, jobs, education, housing, and the like — would benefit all Americans and we look forward to a dialogue of action — not just words — at this critical time in our history.”

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton welcomed the apology by Cunningham, but also said he “wants his words backed by action.” Sharpton said in a statement he hoped that Cunningham would “urge officers around the United States to back his words up with action and legislation to protect communities of color from the onslaught of police misconduct that has disturbed the country…words are important but action is integral.”

Cunningham’s comments came a day after FBI Director James Comey said that Americans “actually have no idea whether the number of black people or brown people or white people being shot by police” has gone up or down, or if any group is more likely to be shot by police, given the incomplete data available. Also speaking to the IACP convention, Comey praised police officers for serving during “a uniquely difficult time” and that the narrative that police are overusing force based on isolated incidents may be exaggerated. The Justice Department has never collected comprehensive data on police shootings or use of force, though it announced a plan to do so last week.

However, in 2015 Comey gave a speech at Georgetown University on law enforcement and race. His points were similar to Cunningham’s. “First,” Comey said, “all of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty. At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups.”

Comey also noted: “We—especially those of us who enjoy the privilege that comes with being the majority—must confront the biases that are inescapable parts of the human condition. We must speak the truth about our shortcomings as law enforcement, and fight to be better. But as a country, we must also speak the truth to ourselves. Law enforcement is not the root cause of problems in our hardest hit neighborhoods. Police officers—people of enormous courage and integrity, in the main—are in those neighborhoods, risking their lives, to protect folks from offenders who are the product of problems that will not be solved by body cameras. We simply must speak to each other honestly about all these hard truths.”

Here is the full text of Cunningham’s remarks Monday:

I would like to take a moment to address a significant and fundamental issue confronting our profession, particularly within the United States. Clearly, this is a challenging time for policing. Events over the past several years have caused many to question the actions of our officers and has tragically undermined the trust that the public must and should have in their police departments. At times such as this, it is our role as leaders to assess the situation and take the steps necessary to move forward.

This morning, I would like to address one issue that I believe will help both our profession and our communities. The history of the law enforcement profession is replete with examples of bravery, self-sacrifice, and service to the community. At its core, policing is a noble profession made up of women and men who have sworn to place themselves between the innocent and those who seek to do them harm.

Over the years, thousands of police officers have laid down their lives for their fellow citizens while hundreds of thousands more have been injured while protecting their communities. The nation owes all of those officers, as well as those who are still on patrol today, an enormous debt of gratitude.

At the same time, it is also clear that the history of policing has also had darker periods.

There have been times when law enforcement officers, because of the laws enacted by federal, state, and local governments, have been the face of oppression for far too many of our fellow citizens. In the past, the laws adopted by our society have required police officers to perform many unpalatable tasks, such as ensuring legalized discrimination or even denying the basic rights of citizenship to many of our fellow Americans.

While this is no longer the case, this dark side of our shared history has created a multigenerational—almost inherited—mistrust between many communities of color and their law enforcement agencies.

Many officers who do not share this common heritage often struggle to comprehend the reasons behind this historic mistrust. As a result, they are often unable to bridge this gap and connect with some segments of their communities.

While we obviously cannot change the past, it is clear that we must change the future. We must move forward together to build a shared understanding. We must forge a path that allows us to move beyond our history and identify common solutions to better protect our communities.

For our part, the first step in this process is for law enforcement and the IACP to acknowledge and apologize for the actions of the past and the role that our profession has played in society’s historical mistreatment of communities of color.

At the same time, those who denounce the police must also acknowledge that today’s officers are not to blame for the injustices of the past. If either side in this debate fails to acknowledge these fundamental truths, we will be unlikely to move past them.

Overcoming this historic mistrust requires that we must move forward together in an atmosphere of mutual respect. All members of our society must realize that we have a mutual obligation to work together to ensure fairness, dignity, security, and justice.

It is my hope that, by working together, we can break this historic cycle of mistrust and build a better and safer future for us all.

Stephen Bright: The punishment for having a bad lawyer shouldn't be the death penalty

Guardian 

A deeply troubling truth about the death penalty is that it is often handed down not to people who commit the worst crimes, but on those assigned the worst lawyer to represent them. Buck v Davis, a Texas case that will be argued before the US supreme court on 5 October, offers an extreme example of just how deadly bad lawyering can be.

Duane Buck was charged with capital murder in Houston, Texas, in 1997. He was too poor to hire his own lawyer so the judge appointed two lawyers to defend him, one of whom has such an abysmal record in capital cases that the New York Times called him: “A Lawyer Known Best for Losing Capital Cases”. His performance in Mr Buck’s was consistent with this record.

In order for a death sentence to be imposed, Texas law requires the prosecutor to prove, and the jury to unanimously find, that the defendant is likely to be dangerous in the future. In Mr Buck’s case, future dangerousness was the central disputed issue at sentencing. The prosecutors did not have a strong case that Mr Buck would be a danger in the future. Indeed, the evidence showed that Mr Buck was not likely to not pose a danger while in prison. But the court-appointed defense lawyers, with Mr Buck’s life on the line, handed the prosecutors powerful evidence for sentencing him to death: Mr Buck was more likely to be dangerous because he is black.

That was the conclusion of a psychologist the defense lawyers retained as an expert. The psychologist prepared a report stating that being “black” is a “statistical factor” that created an “increased probability” that Mr Buck would commit criminal acts of violence in the future. The lawyers appointed to represent Mr Buck called the expert to the witness stand, elicited his testimony that Mr Buck was more likely to be dangerous because he is black, and moved the expert’s report into evidence.

On cross-examination, the prosecutor emphasized the relationship between race and future dangerousness, asking the psychologist if “the race factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons; is that correct?” “Yes,” the psychologist answered, confirming a pernicious – and false – stereotype about black men and criminality. The court-appointed lawyers did not object. The judge said nothing. The jurors, after lengthy deliberations, during which they asked for – and received – a copy of the psychologist’s report, found Mr Buck a future danger. He was sentenced to death.

The presentation of the psychologist’s expert testimony was egregious and inexcusable incompetence on the part of Mr Buck’s court-appointed lawyers. And it is the focus of Mr Buck’s claim before the supreme court that his “trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective”. The lawyers had the psychologist’s report mentioning race as a factor in their possession before they called him to testify. The psychologist had testified in other cases before Mr Buck’s trial that race increases the probability of future dangerousness.

[more]

ATF drug stings targeted non-whites, report finds

USA Today

A new report has found “strong, consistent and statistically significant” evidence that federal gun agents singled out minorities for controversial drug stings in Chicago.

The stings had been a centerpiece of efforts by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to target violent crime. Agents lured suspects with the promise of a huge payday for robbing a drug “stash house” that did not actually exist, then left them facing long prison sentences for plotting to resell the imaginary drugs.

An investigation by USA TODAY in 2014 found that the stings overwhelmingly targeted minorities. At least 91% of the people agents charged nationwide were racial or ethnic minorities. The ATF stings are particularly sensitive because they seek to enlist suspected criminals in new crimes, rather than merely solving old ones, giving agents unusually wide latitude to select who will be targeted.[MORE]

California Prosecutors who withhold or tamper with evidence now face felony charges

LATimes

Amid an ongoing controversy in the Orange County courthouse involving accusations of prosecutorial misconduct, a new law will ratchet up penalties for California prosecutors who tamper with evidence or hide exculpatory material from the defense.

Under the law, which was introduced by Assemblywoman Patty Lopez (D-San Fernando) and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday, a prosecutor can receive up to three years in prison for altering or intentionally withholding evidence that defendants might use to exonerate themselves. Previously, those acts were considered misdemeanors.

“I hear so many stories about innocent people across California, and across the country, who have been wrongfully convicted,” Lopez said. “I just hope that when people think the rules don’t apply to them, they will think twice before they abuse their power.”

Lopez said the legislation was not specifically inspired by events in Orange County. However, the controversy surrounding the office of longtime Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas spurred the bill’s advocates and informed the debate on the state Senate floor. [MORE]

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Blacks Have Consistently Lived Under Systemic Oppression

Americans' Trust in Elite White Mass Media Sinks to New Low

Gallup

Americans' trust and confidence in the mass media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year.

Gallup began asking this question in 1972, and on a yearly basis since 1997. Over the history of the entire trend, Americans' trust and confidence hit its highest point in 1976, at 72%, in the wake of widely lauded examples of investigative journalism regarding Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. After staying in the low to mid-50s through the late 1990s and into the early years of the new century, Americans' trust in the media has fallen slowly and steadily. It has consistently been below a majority level since 2007. [MORE]

Lawsuit claims Detroit schools failing Black students

[JURIST]

A lawsuit [complaint, PDF] was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan [official website] on Tuesday alleging inadequate education facilities and standards in Detroit. Seven students are contending [WSJ report] that the state of Michigan has denied them their constitutional right to literacy due to "infestations of mice and cockroaches, unqualified staffs, unsafe buildings, and inadequate teaching materials." The lawsuit is seeking class action status for those who attend school run by the Detroit Public School Community District. The suit was brought by Public Counsel [advocacy website] as a pro bono matter. The suit cites [press release] numerous examples of inadequate education including an example where an eighth-grade student was forced to teach seventh and eighth-grade math because no teacher was available. [MORE]

'Blue lives matter' law used Against Latino Man who Hurt Thin Skinned Cops Feelings By Calling Them Names: Charged with Felony Hate Crime

Nola

New Orleans police arrested a man this week and charged him with a hate crime and other offenses after police say he damaged a window at a French Quarter hotel and then shouted slurs at a witness and officers, according to the man's arrest warrant.

It appears to be the first time Louisiana's so-called "blue lives matter" provision has been used to charge someone with a hate crime involving police officers, according to the Anti-defamation League. 

Raul Delatoba, 34, was booked Monday (Sept. 5) on charges of simple criminal damage to property, disturbing the peace and a felony-level hate crime, his arrest warrant says. During his arrest, but after he had broken the window, Delatoba is accused of using sexist and racial slurs against police officers, the document shows. 

The regional director of the Anti-defamation League, an organization that trains law enforcement agencies to enforce hate crimes, said she does not believe a hate crime occurred in this incident, based on the circumstances described in Delatoba's warrant. 

Allison Padilla-Goodman, the group's director, said she believes Delatoba is possibly the first person charged with a hate crime under the "blue lives matter" provision the Legislature recently added to the state's hate crime law. The provision adds law enforcement occupation to the list of targeted victims for which a hate crime applies. [MORE]

Black Probots & White Prosecutors Give Middle Finger to Supreme Court: 'In System of White Domination We Must Be Able To Sentence Black Kids to Life Without Parole'

NY Times

Why are Michigan’s prosecutors ignoring the Supreme Court?

Across the state, they are flouting the justices’ clear message in two recent decisions. The first ruling, in 2012, banned mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles in homicide cases. While the court did not prohibit life-without-parole sentences for juveniles completely, it has said that punishment should be used only in the rarest cases — when the defendant “exhibits such irretrievable depravity that rehabilitation is impossible.”

In January, the justices clarified that this rule applies not just going forward but to every inmate already serving such a sentence, or about 2,500 people nationwide.

Michigan prisons house 363 of these inmates. All but a very few should be resentenced to shorter terms, with the possibility of parole. Yet prosecutors are seeking to keep more than half of them locked up forever.

In Wayne County, which includes Detroit and is responsible for about 150 such inmates, the county prosecutor, Kym Worthy, wants to resentence at least 60 of these people to life without parole. In Oakland County, outside Detroit, the county prosecutor, Jessica Cooper, is seeking life without parole for 44 of the 49 currently serving life without parole. These cases involved “heinous, heinous” crimes, Ms. Cooper said.

Young people convicted of murder should be justly punished, but Michigan’s approach isn’t close to what the Supreme Court envisioned. The point made in the court’s rulings is that young people are biologically and psychologically different from adults. They are more impulsive and more prone to change as their brains continue to develop. When it comes to driving, voting and buying alcohol, society recognizes these realities; so should the criminal justice system.

Some states are changing their laws to reflect this understanding of juvenile development. In the last five years, 12 states — including Texas, Nevada, Wyoming and West Virginia — have banned life-without-parole sentences for juveniles in all cases, for a total of 17, according to a new report from the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. Four states ban the sentence in nearly all cases, and three others have never imposed such a sentence.

In many cases, even the prosecutors believed that more lenient terms were appropriate. In Wayne County, for instance, nearly one-third of those serving life without parole were initially offered plea deals that averaged 20 years. One defendant now serving life rejected a plea offer of four years behind bars.

It’s not just defense lawyers and children’s advocates criticizing this trend in Michigan. Former Gov. William Milliken, a Republican, has called for an outright ban on life without parole for juveniles. And a former Wayne County prosecutor, John O’Hair, who was responsible for putting away more than 90 of the inmates currently serving that sentence, has said that in light of the Supreme Court’s rulings, “it’s hard to imagine that a prosecutor would blithely seek life sentences again.” Now it is up to federal judges to force Michigan’s misbehaving prosecutors to follow the law.

The Feds Will Soon Be Able to Legally Hack Almost Anyone

Wired

DIGITAL DEVICES AND software programs are complicated. Behind the pointing and clicking on screen are thousands of processes and routines that make everything work. So when malicious software—malware—invades a system, even seemingly small changes to the system can have unpredictable impacts. 

That’s why it’s so concerning that the Justice Department is planning a vast expansion of government hacking. Under a new set of rules, the FBI would have the authority to secretly use malware to hack into thousands or hundreds of thousands of computers that belong to innocent third parties and even crime victims. The unintended consequences could be staggering.

The new plan to drastically expand the government’s hacking and surveillance authorities is known formally as amendments to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and the proposal would allow the government to hack a million computers or more with a single warrant. If Congress doesn’t pass legislation blocking this proposal, the new rules go into effect on December 1. With just six work weeks remaining on the Senate schedule and a long Congressional to-do list, time is running out.

The government says it needs this power to investigate a network of devices infected with malware and controlled by a criminal—what’s known as a “botnet.” But the Justice Department has given the public far too little information about its hacking tools and how it plans to use them. And the amendments to Rule 41 are woefully short on protections for the security of hospitals, life-saving computer systems, or the phones and electronic devices of innocent Americans.

Without rigorous and periodic evaluation of hacking software by independent experts, it would be nothing short of reckless to allow this massive expansion of government hacking.

If malware crashes your personal computer or phone, it can mean a loss of photos, documents and records—a major inconvenience. But if a hospital’s computer system or other critical infrastructure crashes, it puts lives at risk. Surgical directives are lost. Medical histories are inaccessible. Patients can wait hours for care. If critical information isn’t available to doctors, people could die. Without new safeguards on the government’s hacking authority, the FBI could very well be responsible for this kind of tragedy in the future.

No one believes the government is setting out to damage victims’ computers. But history shows just how hard it is to get hacking tools right. Indeed, recent experience shows that tools developed by law enforcement have actually been co-opted and used by criminals and miscreants. For example, the FBI digital wiretapping tool Carnivore, later renamed DCS 3000, had weaknesses (which were eventually publicly identified) that made it vulnerable to spoofing by unauthorized parties, allowing criminals to hijack legitimate government searches. Cisco’s Law Enforcement access standards, the guidelines for allowing government wiretaps through Cisco’s routers, had similar weaknesses that security researchers discovered. [MORE]

Delaware on Path to Electing First Female and African-American

RollCall

Lisa Blunt Rochester is on the path to making history in Delaware.

The state's former secretary of Labor won the Democratic primary for Rep. John Carney's at-large House seat Tuesday night, and is likely to be the first woman and first African-American the First State sends to Congress.

Delaware's House seat is considered safely Democratic.  

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Rochester led with 44 percent of the vote in the six-way primary. 

EMILY's List backed Rochester and helped get her campaign off the ground. To date, Delaware is one of just three states that has never sent a woman to Congress. [MORE]

Brother Polight on Colin Kaepernick

Black Congresswoman Corrine Brown, a 12-term incumbent, Loses Primary

Politico 

Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown, a 12-term incumbent who faced both redistricting and a federal indictment, lost her primary Tuesday in Florida’s 5th District, becoming the fifth House member to lose renomination this year. Al Lawson, a former state legislator, had 47 percent of the vote to Brown’s 39 percent when the Associated Press called the race with 96 percent of precincts reporting. The heavily Democratic district is all but certain to elect Lawson in November. Brown’s district, which used to stretch from Jacksonville south to Orlando, instead extended east to Tallahassee — Lawson’s home base — under a new congressional map drawn this cycle, after the old one was ruled unconstitutional in state court. Brown was also indicted on federal fraud charges in July, including allegations that she and her top adviser personally profited from a charity. Lawson unsuccessfully challenged then-Rep. Allen Boyd in a 2010 primary in the old 2nd District. He ran again and lost to former GOP Rep. Steve Southerland in the general election in 2012. Former Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah, who has since resigned, also lost his primary earlier this year following an indictment, while Virginia Republican Rep. Randy Forbes and North Carolina Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers lost after being displaced by redistricting. GOP Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas was also defeated in a heavily ideological primary earlier this month.

Inspector General Finds NYPD's Surveillance Of Muslims Routinely Violated Consent Decree Guidelines

TechDirt

Following two lawsuits against the NYPD for its pervasive, rights-violating surveillance of the city's Muslims, the department's Inspector General took a look at a sampling of cases from 2010-2015 to see if the Handschu Agreement -- crafted in 1985 and heavily modified in 2002 -- was being followed. The short answer is "No." So is the long answer [PDF].

The guideline was part of a consent decree created in response to pervasive NYPD surveillance of activities protected by the First Amendment, even when no unlawful activity was suspected. The guideline worked for awhile, but the 9/11 attacks changed that. The NYPD brought in two former CIA employees who decided to turn a domestic law enforcement agency into Langley on the Hudson. Former CIA officer David Cohen used terrorism fears to compel a judge to significantly modify the Handschu Agreement.

From that point on, the NYPD steadily abused the revamped agreement. Its "Demographics Unit" designated entire mosques as terrorist entities, placed the city's Muslims under surveillance, and -- best of all -- generated zero leads.

The Inspector General's report points out that the NYPD couldn't even comply with the relaxed, post-9/11 Handschu Agreement. Instead, the Demographics Unit copy-pasted justifications for pervasive surveillance and passed them up the ladder to the rubber stamps handling the approval process.

OIG-NYPD’s investigation found that NYPD, while able to articulate a valid basis for commencing investigations, was often non-compliant with a number of the rules governing the conduct of these investigations. For example, when applying for permission to use an undercover officer or confidential informant, the application must state the particular role of the undercover in that specific investigation, so that the need for this intrusive technique can be evaluated. NYPD almost never included such a fact-specific discussion in its applications, but instead repeatedly used generic, boilerplate text to seek such permission. Tellingly, this boilerplate text was so routine that the same typographical error had been cut and pasted into virtually every application OIG-NYPD reviewed, going back over a decade.

The NYPD's response [PDF] to the report disputes the accusation of using boilerplate permission slips. But that's all it does. It fails to explain how each individual request somehow contained the same typographical error. Repeatedly. For fourteen years. [MORE]

President Obama Announces A Second Set of More than 100 Clemency Grants This Month

NACDL

In his second set of clemency grants this month, President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 111 prisoners today, 72 of whom were applicants whose petitions were supported by Clemency Project 2014. Today's grants bring the total number of commutations granted by President Obama since taking office to 673.

Cynthia W. Roseberry, project manager for Clemency Project 2014, said: "Today's grants come only a few weeks after the President granted a record number of clemency petitions. On behalf of the Project and the countless people it serves, I want to express how pleased I am with the continued commitment that President Obama has shown toward commuting sentences. We are looking forward to many more grants during the remaining months of President Obama's term in office."

Clemency Project 2014, an unprecedented, independent effort by the nation's bar, has recruited and trained nearly 4,000 volunteer lawyers from diverse practice backgrounds and completed screening of over 33,000 of the more than 36,000 federal prisoners who have requested volunteer assistance. As of today, Clemency Project 2014 has submitted more than 1,600 petitions to the Office of the Pardon Attorney, with many more nearing submission.

For more information and to volunteer for Clemency Project 2014, please visit www.clemencyproject2014.org.

Please direct all media inquiries to media@clemencyproject2014.org.

The American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Federal Public and Community Defenders, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers have joined together under a working group they call Clemency Project 2014. Through the efforts of Clemency Project 2014, the participating organizations are identifying potential clemency petitioners and recruiting and training volunteer lawyers to assist them in securing clemency. 

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is the preeminent organization advancing the mission of the criminal defense bar to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crime or wrongdoing. A professional bar association founded in 1958, NACDL's approximately 9,000 direct members in 28 countries – and 90 state, provincial and local affiliate organizations totaling up to 40,000 attorneys – include private criminal defense lawyers, public defenders, military defense counsel, law professors and judges committed to preserving fairness and promoting a rational and humane criminal justice system.