Making the Case for Clemency

[MUSIC] This program is brought to you by PLI, the Practicing Law Institute. To learn more about this podcast, visit pli.edu/probonopodcast. [MUSIC] These are incredibly exceptional individuals who've transformed and are just so deserving of release. And so that's part of what's so incredible about getting to participate in this process is often criminalized, not a, it doesn't have a happy ending. And these are tragic circumstances with extremely serious facts. But to get to be part of a process that gives hope and is about mercy and healing, it's really incredible. And it's incredibly able to be part of that process. So what is it like to work with a client who has been in prison for more than two decades? To help that client pursue a petition for clemency from the governor. And what is it like to do all of that as you move from law student volunteer to first year attorney launching your career? And what does it feel like to win? Stick with this episode, and you will find out about the experience of one team working with the Seattle clemency project. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to pursuing Justice the Pro Bono Files, a podcast from PLI, The Practicing Law Institute. We are here to tell pro bono stories. Stories that we hope inspire you to take your own pro bono legal work to the next level. I'm your host, Alicia Aiken. I've worked in civil rights, criminal defense, and civil legal aid. But now I'm a principal at the Donew Center for Strategic Advocacy and a faculty fellow at PLI. And I love getting to talk with volunteer lawyers and nonprofit legal projects around the country about the pro bono work that matters to them. I hope you enjoy these conversations as much as I do. [MUSIC PLAYING] In the spring of her second year at Seattle University School of Law, Emma Jensen was approached by John Zulof of the Seattle clemency project. John needed law students to work on a clemency petition for a man named Johnson Sally. Seattle, you had a long-running organization like a student-run club on campus called Seattle University Post-Conviction Appellate Alliance, which was a bit of a mouthful, so we called it "SUPA." So we've had student volunteers doing a lot of research for legal questions that were coming up. John reached out to me and said, I've got this brand new case. I think it's really compelling. And I think it's going to be very difficult, which was kind of a hook for me. He was asking if I knew of anyone who would be interested in participating. And I said, well, I would be interested in participating. Sam Koran was also a 2L at Seattle University. And he's the voice you heard at the top, describing what it means to him to help a client with the clemency process. And Sam had expressed a lot of interest in the work. He really wanted to get involved. Sam's type of person who dots all his eyes and crosses all his teeth. So I figured what a great asset to a partnership. So I asked if Sam was interested, brought him in, and then we began the work. I think Sam made it's often missing from law school for many folks is the hands-on ability to do tangible legal work. And I had a background in undergrad doing a restorative justice inside our program down in Oregon. And so I had met some really incredible folks who had done terrible crimes. So I knew that there was an incredibly deserving people in prison who deserve representation in a second look. And so when Emma mentioned that there was potentially the opportunity to get involved, I just loved that. It's now two years later. Sam is a first-year associate focusing on IP litigation at Perkins, Kui in Seattle. And Emma Jensen is a new staff attorney in the Native American unit at the Northwest Justice Project. Through Sam and Emma's pro bono work, Johnson Sally has been granted clemency. He is preparing to leave prison to join his family in the community, which is pretty exciting news because a grant of clemency is something relatively unusual. Emma and Sam, they have maintained their pro bono commitment to Johnson's clemency petition through their two L summer jobs, through three L finals and graduation, through passing the bar exam and right into their first year as practicing attorneys. So to get a sense of how big a deal this is, we have to go back to the beginning so we can learn what clemency is, why it matters, and why Johnson Sally's case was both compelling and difficult at the same time. Sam, could you talk to us about what is the difference between clemency, parole, and exoneration, which I think is something that comes up in the news a lot? Definitely. These are all different avenues for getting relief for folks who are incarcerated, right? So exoneration you hear about a lot, but that's exclusively for folks who are actually innocent. And those are cases that affect a very small percentage of the incarcerated population. Parole, and it's not available in Washington State, that's second of you an automatic review, or early release mechanism in many states, for folks who are incarcerated, but maybe have good time, good behavior, that sort of thing, which leaves clemency, which is through the governor's pardon power, so it's an executive branch mechanism. And it's entirely discretionary. And you've got two types of clemency. You have commutation of sentences and full pardon. This is like action taken by the governor or on the federal level by the president of the United States. The commutation to reduce somebody's sentence to time served, basically, that's that mechanism and a pardon again, is going to actually sort of erase in some sense that underlying conviction. I can avoid that that mechanism works in Washington State as we have currently five members of the clemency and pardon's board. Essentially, commutation is when a governor decides you have served enough sentence, and you are ready to return to society. You still have the conviction on your record, but you can be released from prison. Pardon is when the governor decides to undo your conviction, and you are released from prison. To help us talk about clemency work, we are joined by Katie O'Sullivan, a commercial litigator at Perkins Kui, and one of the partners who supervised and supported Sam on Johnson Sally's case. Katie gave us a short lesson on why clemency matters. Katie, could you talk to us about what has changed around prison sentencing over the last 40 years in Washington, in the US, and where does clemency fit in? Why does it become important, given so many of the changes that we've seen? Thank you so much, Lish, for the opportunity to be here. Yes, there's been a dramatic increase in the rate of incarceration in state prisons, starting in roughly 1980, and looking at Washington states, specifically, that was driven by a couple of key statutes. 1984 in Washington state parole was abolished. There wasn't an opportunity to have a second look at a sentence. And 1993, the state of Washington passed the three strikes, and you're out similar to other statutes around the country, so four, three crimes one could end up, depending on the nature of the offenses, with a sense of life with no opportunity for parole. So really the key drivers of mass incarceration in Washington, as in many other places around the country, are these life sentences, and otherwise extremely long sentences that have people in prison for decades, with no opportunity for parole. And where clemency comes in is that is an opportunity for someone to get a chance at review. It's sometimes called a second look. Before preparing for this interview, I genuinely did not know that parole had been abolished in the state of Washington in 1984. That means no matter how much a person rehabilitates themselves while in prison, no matter how hard they work to change, no matter how spotless their behavior while incarcerated, they are not entitled to be considered for early release. But they can make a plea for a discretionary second look through clemency. So for people who are seeking clemency, it's not a trial, there's not a jury. So why do they need lawyers? Katie, why does somebody who seeking clemency need a lawyer to plead their case to the board or to the governor? Yes. Well, review is really not going to be meaningful without a lawyer. So it starts with putting something together in writing. And lawyers are good at writing. Lawyers at Perkins Cui are excellent at writing. That's what we do day in and day out. And we do a lot of homework and digging and getting information to build out that written work product. But that's number one. And there are some initial screening by the board in terms of which cases they're going to hear. And then when it goes to a hearing, lawyers skills come in handy there. Because the lawyers, like Sam and Emma are going to tell you, they get to stand up and tell the story forcefully to the board about why this person should get the opportunity for a second look. And you get to hear from the client themselves, but also their support, their family members, their other supporters, people who have interacted with Emma and see the opportunities they have. And it's really putting together a case. Can I pop in here to say as well? Part of the reason that outside external help, including attorneys, are really critical for these kinds of hearings, is that our client is incarcerated. And so you are trying to reach out to family members or friends to speak on your behalf at these hearings. That's hard to do when you're writing letters or you have to send your messages through this specific messaging service for incarcerated folks. If you don't have the resources to go find out where someone may have moved, that's really difficult to reach out to people who maybe you haven't talked to in a while. You lost contact with or someone who you were incarcerated with at a different facility that could really speak to your time in prison. Some of it's like literally a logistical kind of a coordinating effort, that's really important, that it's just hard to do when you don't have those resources. Right. So in the spring of their 2L year, Sam and Emma agreed to help Johnson with preparing and presenting his clemency petition. I asked them to take us back to the beginning of when they got involved. I think it was April, we started to really examine the files and earnests, and then I think it was early. I think it was during our 2L finals week. We went out and visited the client actually. It was a 12 hour drive, including two ferry rides there and back to the northwestern point of Washington State. You take the ferry across the Puget Sound and then you're on the open insulin, then you keep going up. So it was definitely a full day trip. Even before they met Johnson, Sam and Emma read the file that Seattle clemency project had put together. And they started to understand what was compelling and what might be difficult about Johnson's clemency request. Now, unlike a trial, a clemency petition can consider everything about the person. The circumstances they grew up in, the crime they committed, the life they had led behind bars, and the life they might lead in the community if they were released. When they read Johnson's file, they learned that he had grown up in horribly difficult circumstances with trauma that started for his parents before he was even born. The first thing you do when you get involved one of these cases is you get all these files from the Seattle clemency project. They do a lot of the really important screening work for finding some of these really meritorious folks who are incarcerated. It's just an old slew of materials that you're reviewing. And so that's what we were really reviewing in April, getting to know who this person was. And if he grew up in Tacoma, really, it's an incredible story. Johnson's family fled the Khmer Rouge. Most of his extended family were killed in the genocide in Cambodia. One and a half million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia. Johnson's parents lost their families, but they escaped together through the jungle where his mother gave birth to his older sister. And then they made it to a refugee camp in Thailand. And later, responseer to come to the US by a family named the Johnson's. So his first name comes from this family in Seattle that helped them basically save their family's lives. And they, like so many others, came to the United States as refugees with very little language, ability, very little support or opportunity. And his family really struggled. They ended up moving to a very dangerous neighborhood in Tacoma in the time. And their family struggled with hunger, poverty, all sorts of things. And Johnson grew up in this environment that was extremely violent. He was eaten up almost every day, going to elementary school. And the home life was similarly challenging. I think he was 10 years old when his father dropped him off at the juvenile detention hall one day. And-- I didn't even know that was a thing that could be done. Let alone would anyone ever want to. Yeah, it's serious, serious trauma. And that was the hall that he ended up being recruited by a gang there. Then this was a gang of other young Asian boys and young men who tried to band together, then fight with each other instead of alone. And so that was the environment that he grew up in. He'd been shot and stabbed during his teen years. Again, it was a very, very dangerous environment. And the juvenile hall, it was also particularly dangerous. Of course, whenever you're interviewing a client, you need to go and look and corroborate everything that you're saying. I found article and art after article about some of the circumstances in the neighborhood and the juvenile detention and the violence that happened there. I mean, these are articles from the '90s, of course. And really, really challenging circumstances you grew up with. Empathy for Johnson and his family and what they went through is certainly one of the compelling elements to his clemency petition. But Emma and Sam also had to navigate the difficult parts and to the crime that Johnson committed was definitely difficult. In April of 2000, at the age of 19, Johnson shot and killed his friend and fellow gang member, Cossal. Cossal was also listed as a prosecution witness in a high-profile murder case against other members of the gang. Johnson subsequently pleaded guilty to killing Cossal and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Of course, that summary completely misses just how complicated, terrifying, and heartbreaking the situation was for Johnson and his family and Cossal's family. So in this period of time in Tacoma, gang tensions were really high. A few members of the gang that Johnson belonged to participated in what was a really horrific kind of mass murder situation in Tacoma. Someone was listed as a prosecution witness in that-- so the gang heard about this person that was potentially going to quote unquote snitch. And so Johnson was told that he needed to handle the problem. Johnson went to warn his friend. He needed to leave that he should run because the gang was looking for him. That didn't happen. And the gang found out about the warning that Johnson had tried to give and told Johnson that essentially if he didn't kill this person, then they would kill him. And they would harm his family. He had a newborn son, and the gang had showed up a couple days earlier at his sister's home. At his sister's child's three-year-old birthday party when the gang shows up and they take him into the bathroom and they corner him there and they keep him there for hours, telling him he has to do this. And they won't let his sister in. This is a child's birthday party. And Johnson here is 19, his long-term girlfriends just given birth to their only child who is now two months old. And this just, emotions are very high. And the circumstances are extreme. And he makes this choice, I think, impulsively. He was 19. And I think he made this choice thinking he had no other choice as well. And he infinitely regretted it. Go going through Johnson's files, his old files. I think he was interviewed in 2001 as he was first going into prison by a new corrections officer. And during that interview, it comes out just how clear his remorse is for what he did. And he says, if you can turn back the hands of time, he would make any other decision. And just that sense of sorrow, I think, is really profound in even really early writing there. And I think in the gang world, that's uncommon. In the gang world, there's lots of justification for what you're doing. You're doing it for your group, basically. And that is just not how Johnson felt. So it's all that this was a tragedy from the multiple trigger. These are the things that they could learn from reading files and from news reports. But I asked them to also tell us what it was like to meet Johnson, a man in his 40s, who had spent decades in prison. By the time they went out to visit him in 2023, at the Clalam Bay Prison near the tip of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. He's just this incredibly, smiley kind, attentive individual, who was really excited to have us there, really excited that we were interested in his case and might be able to help him. And he was really vulnerable early on. I think part of what's challenging about this process on the client side is we're complete strangers. And we might be half your age. When we're showing up here, and we're asking you to tell us about some of the hardest parts of your childhood, to tell us about your family trauma, your worst moments and some of the worst decisions you've ever made, and really open up to us. And that was something that takes a lot of courage, really. And I think we had about two hours, but the prison let us have to have that meeting to initially get to know him and interview him and learn about his circumstances. And I was just totally blown away by him and really, really impressed. - Yeah, he was quite lovely just as a person. So he was incarcerated on the Olympic Peninsula, which is just for anyone who lives in the Seattle area. I mean, it is like if you either have to, it's gonna take you all day or you gotta go stay out there. So he didn't have a ton of visitors, that in itself to just have some face-to-face human contact with some folks who he doesn't see every day, I think was exciting for him. But he was just firm handshake and he looked, he write in the eyes when he was talking to you and just really wanted to communicate with us and explain as much as he could and help in any way that he possibly could. We were kind of his last hope for relief and really poured everything that he had into every conversation we had, every letter we wrote, every message that we sent with him and every phone call, he was the person he was when he sat down with us is the person that he has continually shown himself to be throughout our, I think the entire multiple years of us knowing him. - Do you remember when they first met him? It was spring of their two L year. And Sam was signed up to work for the summer at Perkins Kui. So he was going to have to have their okay to stay on Johnson's case. - How did you approach Perkins Kui about continuing to work on Johnson's case while you were a summer associate there? - And so that was something that I pretty much immediately raised but I needed to make sure that that was something that Perkins was going to be supportive of and I knew it was maybe not super common all the time for the law firms to have summer associates involved in pro bono work like this. Little did I know the warm reception that I would receive. I didn't think there was enthusiasm that I was so eager to get involved with with a case like this that really made a huge human difference and would give me a lot of hands-on writing and eventually, or a lot because he experienced too. And a key part of our process at Perkins and I'm sure Katie can speak to this, how you can better than I, is that we have to have supervising partner. We have to have somebody who's a union supervisory role for associates and getting involved in this work. And I was fortunate enough to have during that summer the legendary Tom Hillier, Thomas Hillier, the second who is the head federal defender here in Washington and Western District for about 30 years. I thought about the defender. And he was also just an incredible, incredible mentor gave wonderful feedback on the petition from that side and Perkins was thoroughly supportive. - That's marvelous. And so Katie, from your perspective as a partner at Perkins Kuhi, how does that feel for the firm to have a summer associate coming in saying, I am here to prove myself. Also, I've got my own pro bono project I want. You all to take on with me. - Well, it's not typical, but we embraced it. And our summer associates are often involved in one form of pro bono or another. And so we thought it a perfect opportunity to let Sam run with this one. - And how did that, how did this Seattle clemency project fit in with the pro bono that Perkins Kuhi was already doing? - By 2023, we were already well involved with Seattle clemency project going back to, I think about 2015. And so this opportunity fit in very well with what we were already doing with Seattle clemency project and with our other pro bono work across the firm, which really is quite wide-ranging and matches the diversity of interests of our lawyers from across the firm, whether it be word for veterans or religious liberty, criminal and racial justice, working for low-income entrepreneurs or inventors is a huge range of opportunities for our lawyers. And what is your own, Katie, your personal history working with the Seattle clemency project? - I began working with Seattle clemency project back in 2016. And I've now worked on five different cases with them. And it's just been a great partnership because what Seattle clemency project does, I think Sam, I'd mentioned this, they identify the clients in their screening process. And secondly, why I've really enjoyed doing this work is it's really a storytelling experience. So it involves getting to know the client, Sam and Emma were talking about in person over the phone and then drawing that story out. And third, I've enjoyed the direct impact of the work and we've had sixth class with a number of these clients, not all of them. I mean, it's a tough, it's a tough and arduous process, but to be able to see someone who was once incarcerated for decades be no longer incarcerated, be fully employed and living in the community, that's just an amazing experience. - Yeah, absolutely. And how, in your experience in Washington, like how easy or hard is it to be granted clemency? Do you have a sense? - It's quite difficult. In fact, it requires extraordinary circumstances. I think Sam's got the stats and figures to back that up. - I do. Of course, it's entirely up to the discretion of the governor. You know, clemency is a process that is really centered on mercy and hope and that is extremely individual and for good reason. Of course, we have a new governor in Washington, a previous governor during his tenure in the clemency board, which is appointed by the governor. They had somewhere around 300 hearings since about 2012, which sounds like a lot, but also doesn't sound like a lot. We think about how many folks are incarcerated. So these are folks who were granted hearings. We are not sure how many people apply for clemency during that time. And I think only about 100 of those ultimately ended up having their sons community were given a pardon by the governor. - So when the clemency project reached out about Johnson's case, they said they thought it was a strong case. They said it was compelling, but also difficult. In your minds, Emma and Sam, what made Johnson's claim for clemency strong and worth pouring your energy into it? - I think what made it strong is just kind of the circumstances of his life. You, I think it's easy, I shouldn't say easy. But when you look at the circumstances that he was in and the situations that he was in, like growing up that his parents were in, I mean, we're recognizing more and more, right? How intergenerational trauma has direct impacts on the folks that come after you. So the trauma that happens to your parents really manifests in the children and in grandchildren and in great-grandchildren. And I work with tribal communities and that's like very apparent in the work that I do every day. And so to know the sacks of Johnson's life, the things that happened to his mother, the things that happened to his father, his sisters, and then him, when kind of faced with these circumstances, he's just a compelling person. And then, you know, like what Sam was talking about earlier, his remorse was very evident to me and to our team very quickly. And so I think, you know, folks who do criminal law generally, you know, a lot of them know Brian Stevenson. And I think the kinds of things that he talks about where, you know, we are only as good as how we treat the most vulnerable in society, right? Was very apparent in Johnson's case to me that the way that we were going to approach this was like really the way that we should be viewing anyone who's incarcerated. So for me, this was like, it was, Johnson was really compelling, but also, you know, Johnson did commit a really heinous act. He harmed his own family. He harmed himself and he very, very deeply harmed the victim's family. And he knows that and he recognizes that. And I don't think that that negates that he has changed since he committed this crime. To sort of build off of that a little bit too. I think really the rehabilitation and community support pieces, those are key factors that the board often looks at that are really salient in their determination about whether or not to recommend to the governor that some of them receive a communication. And I think that's really where, you know, I connected with Johnson's story too. Because in many ways, most people, when things are really hard, don't break out of those cycles of violence. It's incredibly difficult. [MUSIC PLAYING] What did Johnson do in prison that so impressed Sam, Emma, and the Seattle Clemencey Project? There were many things, but first, he did something dangerous. He turned his back on the gang, which had a presence inside the prison. Literally, he made a formal renunciation to a prison guard in the presence of other gang members, and then he lived by that decision. Johnson reputed his gang in 2004, really early in this incarceration. And then the desire after that to give back, I think. Well, one of the stories that always resonates for me from Johnson's activities in prison is his anti-gang work in prison. He actually met with somebody who was an arrival gang. I came to the Maximum Security Prison. And they fought back in the day, back when they were teenagers. And not only did they not do that, they decided to co-lead workshops on anti-argang prevention and anti-gang violence in the prison, involved the Asian-American in the Black prisoners' caucuses. It's incredible. I think they hosted some teens out there also to try to have an earlier intervention and prevent people from making the same mistakes that they did. And so really, again, these are incredible people who are doing incredible work both within themselves and within the community, even despite the circumstances. I think repudiating the gang, when the gang does have a presence in the prison and you don't have physical control over where yourself goes or does not go to go into hiding or absolute yourself. Like, it's a risky thing for that he did. And I don't think anybody should take that for granted. And then the anti-gang work and the accessing education, I believe he has an associate's degree that he obtained after getting a GED while in prison. So many of the people I represented in my work also had other life sentences or very long sentences. And I think too many people on the outside think that equals worst of the worst people who deserve to be thrown away. And so often what we see is people who say, OK, this is my life, so I'm going to build a life. I am going to take advantage of everything that I can possibly get access to to, in fact, build a life that I can feel good about or be proud of. But it's quite a bit difficult to avoid discipline, to avoid physical violence, to avoid drugs. All of those things, when somebody achieves that in prison, it's a bigger deal, I think, than when they do it on the outside. How long did it take you to prepare his petition? You start in spring of '23. Spring of '23. I think we filed it by the middle to end of July. So about maybe three months, three or four months from the initial meeting, as far as getting a hearing, that is a fantastic, really critical for a step, because if you don't get a hearing, you lose. If you don't get a hearing, you get to apply again in three years. And that's part of what's so important about this process and about how we're representation at this stage, is some people and many people new apply for clemency and never get a hearing. I think that we were granted a hearing about a year later. I think it was June of 2024. So when was the hearing? The hearing was in December of 2024. It's a year and a half later after you filed. The volume is so high and the need is so high because we don't have any parole system to provide relief for folks. And so I do think that the board diligently is reviewing these petitions. There's just such a volume of them. And so figuring out which ones are extraordinary or are in the interest of justice is a tall order. Just want to make sure that we're not overly criticizing this process that's a little bit challenging, hurdles I do. Sure. We could be hard on the bureaucracy and soft on the people doing their best work in the bureaucracy because I was struck, the five board members in your hearing all seemed very, they had clearly read the materials. They seemed very interested and engaged. You may wonder how I have an opinion about the board members. The hearing itself is a matter of public record. It was recorded and I have watched the whole thing. And I can tell you, it was obvious that everyone involved was deeply affected. So can you put us in the room? Like what was it like? Were you in the room with the five board members? Were you on all the witnesses together to describe it for us? Since COVID, it's all on Zoom. And so it's a remote hearing which has some pros and has some cons. First flexibility for coordinating. As people can testify remotely, it is a wonderful asset. The connection issues as a Muslim that we experienced in our hearing. It is a problem that you can sometimes experience too. But to try to avoid that, we hosted our African's QE. We have an excellent mock courtroom. I was an associate. I started in September. We had the hearing in December. And I accosted Katie early on and said, hey, would you please supervise them for please, but it's kind of already going on that for being called we have before. And Katie was incredibly generous with her time and support here as well. And so African's QE was kind enough to help. But to let us use this space. And we have everybody that is not incarcerated-- Johnson being the only one-- in this mock court. So we have his family, his supporters, the folks who we have speaking on his behalf. Johnson had several very heartfelt witnesses on his behalf. His older sister, Chris, had tried to take on a parent role with him when she was only 16 and pregnant with her first child. His close sister, Chris, who's been with him from the beginning and is sort of like a second mother to him, they just have grown so close throughout that process. And getting to see that healing in action and getting to see the transformation that someone's really made happen for themselves despite those circumstances and despite the environment in prison, it's incredible. Another witness was Johnson's mentor from prison, who had been released after a resentencing and has been working as a software engineer in the community. In a prison is not the most rehabilitative place in the world. Of course, there are programs there. There is some opportunity to better oneself. But that's something that you really have to seek out and have mentors who push you into doing that. And Johnson was fortunate to have some of those mentors, one of whom spoke at our hearing, Chris Blystone. And then he was a huge mentor for Johnson on education, which really led him to have hope in himself, and in self-betterment and taking classes. Yeah, the testimony, too, of the folks who were there to support him were just like incredibly powerful. You know, I think we did what we could to present the case, but the folks who won the case were the people that love Johnson and support Johnson and mentor him and care for him. And so to have them all together in the same space and to have them speak on his behalf and to be there to hear what he means to them, how they view him was just such an incredibly powerful thing. His sister, particularly, had an incredibly moving statement and his mentor while incarcerated was also just like emotional in talking about how proud he was of Johnson. And that was just a special thing to be a part of. Well, and his sister even came back and testified a second time because it was interesting the way she was doing some cultural translation, saying, you know, in our culture, the way we were raised, you do not express emotion publicly. And so to said to the board, I don't want you to think that if you think that he's not crying during his testimony, that means that he doesn't feel it. He does, I mean, she disclosed half-night matters because of what he did and that, you know, he does feel it. I thought it was very compelling and important that she kind of came back and said, no, I want you to see. Not only is he this like mentor for other people and tutor for other people in prison and this centered person who you were seeing here, but also he feels pain. One of the hardest things to watch in the hearing was Johnson testifying via Zoom from prison because he was so earnest and trying so hard to communicate, but the internet kept freezing, making it difficult for the board to see and hear him. He must have felt terrified that it would hurt his petition. The facility that he was in, the prison he was in, is really remote and I guess it's not uncommon to have some internet outages and there's absolutely nothing they can do about it. So his video feed was freezing a lot and skipping around so the board members were having a hard time hearing his testimony. And so to kind of solve that problem, we had him turn his camera off to try and make sure that at least the audio was coming through. Concern with that, right, is that like when you're kind of asking for mercy, it's a lot more personable when you can see the face of the person who's asking for that. And so 'cause you have to humanize them, right? You have to, all the board members very prepared, read all the materials, had files of everything we had put in and anything additional that they might have had. And this hearing is an opportunity for them to see our client to see Johnson as the person that he is and not just all this paperwork. We had to turn off the camera for part of that. And so there was, you know, that didn't feel great when it was happening, but I think Johnson's words, which he spent a long time working on and composing for himself were very powerful and clearly powerful enough that you didn't need to see his face to kind of feel what he was saying. - I was struck by how he held his composure. I think just watching my anxiety spiked when he had to go on and off of video. And you know, when they asked him, they pressed him with some follow up questions about the murder and about his remorse. And so I was very impressed with how he just sort of like held a certain level of equanimity throughout all of it. - We did not have the prosecutor and he opposed the petition, but they chose not to speak that day. After the, we go and then the prosecutor would go, the board then closes argument and discusses. And then on the spot, they vote whether to recommend a commutation or pardon to the governor or not. And you know, like any oral argument, like you just don't know what people are thinking. - I will say I was alone in my kitchen watching the hearing on video. And you know, when there was the close of the testimony, all of a sudden they said, is there a motion? And I was like, oh, it's happening right now. I was so in the moment, someone made a motion for clemency. And I was like, you know, like with my biting my nails to see if anybody was going to second the motion. And then they did. You might feel really confident, you might feel really scared, but it's all up in the air until you hear that. And I think the moment that sticks out in my mind is when they vote. And then it turns out that they vote unanimously to recommend a commutation for Johnson. And just the elation of that moment, both, you know, with my friends and council here. And then just with Johnson's family and his supporters, and there wasn't a dry eye in that room in that moment. [MUSIC PLAYING] The board vote was five to zero recommending commutation of Johnson's sentence. I asked Sam to talk more about what these board votes mean and the relative importance of it being unanimous. I think this also goes to the fact that it's a recommendation, right? Governors sometimes branch non-unanimous motions, and sometimes they will deny unanimous ones. If you are successful at clemency for it, then the next stage is the government's council. And you're trying to provide them all the materials they need to help the governor make the governor's decision. And so given all the other responsibilities of the governor, it's a lot of effort and energy on their side to evaluate those. And look at those seriously and individually. In this case, they were particularly concerned about getting a decision from the governor quickly, because he was about to leave office. That transition between administrations could slow everything down. Or it could completely interrupt the process of anyone's clemency being approved. Remember, it is all discretionary. - So the decision at the hearing was December 12th, 2024. You had waited for over a year after filing the petition to get this hearing. How long did it take the governor to make a decision and what was the governor's decision? - Yeah, it was a very busy December for us. Initially, they informed us that they were still evaluating petitions from prior hearings. They weren't sure that they were going to even be able to review this. But then I think it was near as even near as day. And we received word that it might be possible, you know, still hard to work evaluating petitions. - And it was done, right, January 10th, 2025. Governor Insali signed and granted clemency to Johnson. So how did Johnson react? - I called him. And I mean, again, just tears of joy. It was really so exhilarating. They joy and the gratitude and the enthusiasm. And I think that was something that we were all feeling. We were all able to share that moment. - So, okay, so January 2025 clemency is granted. But if I understand correctly, Johnson is still incarcerated now. So what happens for him after clemency is granted? What is the process for actually getting released? - Yeah, there's kind of a step down process. It's a bit of a kind of deescalation system. So he was moved recently out of maximum security. And he's now in a minimum security prison. So has a little bit more freedom. He also was required to do some counseling and treatment. There were just requirements from the governor's office of the kinds of things that they want to see. Folks go through before they're back out in the community. - We've been working with the folks at DOC helping us, you know, coordinate that transition. Because I think we all have an interest in making sure that that's a smooth transition. - Yeah, so there's no like distinct timeline on that. Some of this is kind of up in the air about when these boxes get ticked a little bit. But in theory, within two years, hopefully sooner than that. - So what do you feel like you learned? I'd love to hear from each of you by working on this particular clemency case. - Oh, I mean, so much. Having the opportunity to represent an individual, especially, you know, for me, where most of the clients that I work with day to day are companies. Working with an individual like that, it's different. It's really impactful. I think, obviously, it's incredible writing experience. It's incredible advocacy experience. Getting the opportunity, particularly early in practice to give an opening and closing, like Emma and I got to do. It's really a phenomenal experience and definitely prepared me to be a lawyer in many ways more than almost anything else that I did, you know, in law school. - Yeah, I would absolutely second that. I think it was one of the more impactful parts of law school for me. Unless you know that you want to kind of get into litigation and do more oral advocacy work and you seek those opportunities out, they don't always, they don't always pop up. And so this was kind of my first big bit of oral advocacy, which was, you know, a fantastic experience. And I think it really hammered home for me that I love direct services. I'm the happiest when I'm sitting across from a client. - I want to follow up Emma on what you just described about this helping you figure out what you'd want to do for a career. So you are a full-time staff attorney for the Northwest Justice Project, which is nonprofit legal aid. You continued doing this pro bono work in your free time entirely separate from the Northwest Justice Project while doing your full-time job, which is intense. Different from what it means to be at Perkins Cooie, which is an intense job, but has a long history of facilitating pro bono work. This is really your personal time. What would you say to another legal aid attorney who is considering doing pro bono work outside of their time? They're also very impactful and important client-heavy legal aid job. - Yeah, thank you for that question. There is a tremendous need in the world for legal support for those who are the most vulnerable. And I think obviously no one knows that better than civil legal aid attorneys or public defenders. And it is hard for me to see that need to see it in things that are interesting to me in things that I want to be helping out in. The job that I do is all civil. And so this was an opportunity for me to feed that part of my soul to the part that went into law school wanting to advocate for those who were incarcerated. I found another passion in federal Indian law and in tribal law and working with tribal members. So to be able to do both of those things, it's possible, it took, it was some late nights for me, some very early mornings, or my lunch break, you know, things that were off the clock because I can't do both of them at the same time. But it's possible because it's a little bit of my time, but my client was incarcerated for 25 years, like this is a little bit of my free time. And that is his entire life, right? You gotta do it gently and you gotta do it carefully. It's a way to get experience in types of law that you don't do every day. - And Sam, you have an intense job, IP litigation as a first year associate. Everything is about getting your feet under you and learning the ropes. What would you say to a law student or a new associate who's in big law and considering how pro bono fits in with their career? - Yeah, I think, I think, I think, at going Emma a little bit, I've always had diverse interests and I love my day job. I love intellectual property and I love working for conscuing. I think it's a fantastic place to work. But I've always liked having my cake and needing it to a little bit. And this is an area that's always been interested in me and I think of the justice issues have always been pretty apparent to me. And so I think my advice to a student who's considering big law is like myself, really interested in working with the most innovative clients in the world on some of the biggest cases. You can use pro bono as an opportunity to hone your skills early in career, meet incredible mentors and advocates at your firm and really think about how those can be things that can complement each other and they don't necessarily have to be intention. So yeah, I'm just really proud to be the place that supports that. - Katie, I'm gonna give you the last word. What do you think Perkins Kuhi as a firm has gained from being involved with the Seattle Clemency Project? - Perkins Kuhi has gained a number of things being involved with the Seattle Clemency Project and one of them given boys to by Sam today is just the incredible training and opportunities that gives to our junior lawyers that a first-year associate could stand up at this hearing is just a great example of the benefits we get. And relatively, I think it brings a lot of pride in the firm. We have associates and partners across the firm who have worked on cases like this and many others. And as I mentioned before, we don't always win, but we give it our best and we've delivered some great outcomes for our clients and we have tremendous pride in the work we've done for them. And the third thing we've gained is the opportunity to meet clients like Johnson, like Richard, like Aaron, like Heather and Malcolm, just to name a few other people that I've represented. And these are folks who've had trauma in their lives. They've inflicted trauma on others and they have overcome. And I always thought they would be the ones who would be kind of maybe depressed or pessimistic, whereas I found them to be some of the most optimistic and grateful clients sending funny messages to us and thank you, cards. And that is what's brought me and so many others back to this kind of work and very grateful the opportunity. (upbeat music) So think about it. Think about whether clemency might interest you for your pro bono contribution. There are nonprofits all over the country, supporting volunteer lawyers to work on clemency cases. And we can thank Katie O'Sullivan, Sam Koran, and Emma Jensen for giving us an inside look into the experience of working with a client who used his prison time to make major changes in his life and to be the kind of person that can be recognized by a governor as deserving of a second chance to be a positive influence in the community. (upbeat music) Thanks for listening to "Pursuing Justice," the pro bono files, a podcast from PLI, the Practicing Law Institute. This production is dedicated to the pro bono and public interest lawyers working to improve access to justice. A special thanks goes to our producer, Daniel Pinez, as well as our host, Alicia Aiken. Please note that the views and opinions expressed during this podcast represent those of the individuals being interviewed and not necessarily those of PLI. PLI is a nonprofit learning organization dedicated to keeping attorneys and other professionals at the forefront of knowledge and expertise. For more information about PLI's wide-ranging curriculum of pro bono programs, visit PLI.edu/pro bono.