Most imprisoned individuals lack the resources to meaningfully access avenues of relief. There is no constitutional right to counsel in these proceedings; public defense providers are often statutorily barred from providing representation, ineligible to receive compensation for this representation, or lack the time to assist; few attorneys have any background or training in this type of representation; and very few individuals or their families have the funds to hire counsel. Significant hurdles lay before individuals who are forced to try to navigate the process pro se or on their own behalf. From substantive challenges such as gaining access to needed records and documents, to procedural issues regarding form and content, to practical barriers such as access to paper or postage, those who are left unrepresented are at a significant disadvantage.

This back-end approach to providing other avenues of relief is especially vital in the era of excessive sentencing, trial penalty, cannabis reform, and the OLC Memo threatening those on CARES Act Home Confinement. Through the Excessive Sentencing Project, NACDL aims to help free those individuals in federal prison whose sentences are too long either because they would receive a much lower sentence today due to intervening changes in the law or because their original sentence is simply unjust. NACDL’s Trial Penalty Clemency Project provides a second chance to those living in trial penalty as they serve excessively long prison sentences as a result of electing to go to trial and holding the government to its burden. The Cannabis Justice Initiative focuses on those thousands of individuals left in prison for now lawful conduct when considering the pace at which cannabis is being legalized. A memo issued by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the final days of the Trump administration, threatens to send around 4,500 people on CARES Act Home Confinement back to federal prison after the pandemic ends. None of these people were told they might be sent back and most made plans for a future with their families at home. The CARES Act Home Confinement Initiative was created as an emergency response to keeping thousands of people safely completing their sentencing at home from going back to prison. There is pressing societal interest in reducing prison populations and mitigating the fundamental injustice inflicted upon those who have suffered excessive criminal convictions and the attendant consequences of those convictions.

The Return to Freedom Project seeks to recruit, train, and support volunteer attorneys to assist these individuals seeking release through clemency, compassionate release, and other forms of relief.

The work of the attorneys is tailored to the requirements of the state or federal project. In general, the volunteers will prepare a clemency application or compassionate release motion describing their client's background and history, information concerning their period of incarceration, and a re-entry plan.



For each initiative, there are specific examples and materials to support the volunteer's work.