Criminal Defense Clinic client Dawud[1] walked out of USP Pollock federal prison in Louisiana on May 21, 2021 after serving almost 27 years of a life sentence in a murder case, the rare recipient of a life sentence reduction under the federal compassionate release statute. Dawud’s case was a remarkable and unlikely victory for a person who had lived more than half his life in prison—and a life-changing experience for the team of student-attorneys and social work students who helped get him to this day.
Nine months earlier, Carey Law students were adjusting to their first full semester of virtual learning in the shadow of the global pandemic. Aggressive COVID-19 protocols were required for entry to the law school building—if you were permitted to enter at all. For all the challenges the students were facing, the pandemic had brought dire health consequences to incarcerated individuals as prisons quickly became hotspots for the spread of the virus. Dawud, who lives with several significant health conditions, watched as friends and cellmates tested positive for COVID-19. With no social distancing, no soap to wash their hands, no regular testing and no mask-wearing in his prison, he was convinced that he was next. Dawud’s resulting request for compassionate release was among a deluge of requests to federal public defender offices from prisoners across the country arguing that severe chronic health conditions, when combined with the extremely high risk of contracting COVID-19, presented “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to reduce their sentences. Assistant Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland Shari Derrow ’13 reached out to Criminal Defense Clinic professor Maneka Sinha for help, and offered to teach a class and serve as a resource throughout the course of the case.
Although she normally didn’t assign cases to students until the spring portion of her year-long clinic, Professor Sinha felt compelled to accept Dawud’s case. Dawud had completed a massive turnaround while in prison, becoming a devout Muslim, expressing deep remorse for taking someone’s life, earning his GED while taking 132 courses, mentoring younger prisoners, and regularly defusing arguments among inmates. She knew that if her students could get him released, he’d be successful on the outside because he’d already done the hard work on himself.
She assigned the case to 2Ls Meghan Howie and Avery Potts, along with 3Ls Summer Akhtar and Rose Cowan, but she warned them that the likelihood of success for any case past the post-conviction stage would be slim, especially for a client serving a life sentence. “I reminded the students that defense attorneys celebrate the fight, not the wins, because wins come few and far between.”
Dawud remembers his first virtual interaction with the students—they made no guarantees other than they’d “give it their all.” That was enough for him to feel optimistic.
The students jumped right in. They quickly developed a rapport with Dawud, despite having to fight to schedule every phone call as USP Pollock had been on lockdown for months. As he recalled, even without being able to see each other’s faces, “they made me feel so comfortable that I felt like I could really talk to them.” He opened up to them about his past, his childhood in the foster care system, and the loss of so many family members to the streets. His transparency provided new mitigation evidence that bolstered Summer and Rose’s portion of the argument on disparate sentencing, which had already required sifting through hundreds of pages of trial transcripts from three decades prior.
Meanwhile, Avery and Meghan focused on the impact of COVID-19 on Dawud’s comorbidities, which required taking a deep dive into his medical records and history, and obtaining new medical consultations and expert opinions. Meghan recalls that “everything was harder than we thought it would be, and not only because of COVID.” At one crucial moment, the prison was locked down and—unable to reach Dawud while in lockdown— the team had to make a crucial decision about whether to include a highly personal and sensitive piece of mitigating information in their motion. They grappled with how to proceed, but relied on the strong attorney-client bond they’d created in reaching a decision that Dawud fully supported.
Summer and Rose also followed a lead back to the original sentencing judge. In reading the trial transcripts, they believed that Judge Andre Davis may have had deep misgivings about being hamstrung by mandatory sentencing guidelines, and convinced him (now retired from the bench) to write a powerful letter of support that became the centerpiece of their argument.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Bowman-Rivas, Director of our Law and Social Work Program, was leading her students in developing essential information that the court would need in reaching a decision about Dawud’s case. Social work students Liam Montanarelli and Lyric Seymore scrambled to develop a full biopsychosocial history for Dawud along with release plans based on options in Baltimore, Chicago and Virginia. Crucial to their argument was that the Law and Social Work Program would provide services and supports to Dawud as he transitioned back into the outside world.
In less than three months, the team had assembled what they believed to be an excellent motion, and later a reply brief. Now all that was left to do was wait.
On May 10, 2021, Judge Catherine Blake granted the motion for sentence reduction to time served, citing to Dawud’s “remarkable” post-sentencing conduct, his early life of “near-continuous instability and trauma,” his long list of supporters (including BOP personnel and Judge Davis), his mentorship that taught other inmates how to “live a life of substance,” his deep remorse for the underlying crime, the “sound release plan” developed by the social work students, and the injustice in mandatory life sentencing. Prof. Sinha called the entire team to an early morning Zoom meeting, and they were prepared for the worst. When they heard the good news, “We were all shocked, we all cried,” said Meghan.
After a two-week quarantine, Dawud’s flight landed in Baltimore, and all four of his student-attorneys and Prof. Sinha were there to greet him and share in his joy. Summer drove straight from graduation, and Rose flew in from out of state. “It was totally surreal,” said Meghan, “because we’d all mentally prepared ourselves for the possibility that it wouldn’t happen, that he wouldn’t be released.” Dawud declined to shake hands with the students and Prof. Sinha due to his religious beliefs, but he asked a friend who had come to pick him up to “shake the students’ hands 100 times” to thank them for all they’d done.
Dawud’s time on the outside has not been easy. For several months, he had no form of identification because they’d been lost by prison officials, and he couldn’t get a job without an ID. The “sound release plan” cited by Judge Blake proved crucial for making this just a bump in the road rather than a total derailment. Law and Social Work student Allison Neumann worked with Dawud all summer to get a brand new birth certificate, social security card, and finally, Maryland state ID. He’s had to learn to use a cellphone and computer, and is still digesting how much Baltimore has changed from the city he left 27 years ago.
But Dawud has only ever focused on the good things. He was married on August 8th, and has a job working nights at a distribution center. He has been serving as a mentor to other young Black men trying to find a path off the streets. His current Law and Social Work student Allison was struck by Dawud’s resilience, gratitude and patience despite everything that he’d been through. “I don’t understand how someone could go through that and be so calm, so relaxed, so at peace with everything that happened,” she said. Dawud attributes his inner peace to his deep faith and his practice of gratitude, so much of which is directed toward the team of students who helped him get out of prison. “All of them are forever dear to me,” he says.
While Prof. Sinha’s students still focus on misdemeanor trials in the Spring semester, they will also be continuing their compassionate release work, which has given them a wider breadth of experiences in developing client relationships, advocacy skillsets, and written work. She knows they’ll take all of these skills with them into practice, but expects that the one thing they’ll never forget is the impact they made on Dawud’s life.
[1] To protect this client’s confidentiality, his real name is not being used in this article.