Jones Day obtains presidential commutation reducing client’s mandatory life sentence for nonviolent drug-related offenses to a term of 240 months

Client(s) G.L.

On December 19, 2016, the U.S. Office of the Pardon Attorney notified a Jones Day team that President Obama had granted their client’s clemency petition reducing his mandatory life sentence to a term of 240 months. Jones Day submitted their client’s petition as part of a nationwide effort organized by Clemency Project 2014 in response to the Obama administration’s criminal justice reform initiative inviting nonviolent offenders who had served at least ten years of a federal sentence that would be substantially shorter under today’s sentencing policies to apply for clemency. The Jones Day team argued that, if prosecuted today, their client’s sentence for conspiring to distribute narcotics and money laundering would be no longer than 360 months to life and as short as 234 months because (among other things), under current charging policies, the prosecution would not seek two statutory enhancements based on prior nonviolent offenses that mandated the client’s life sentence at the time of his prosecution. Jones Day’s client, now forty-four years old, will be released in about eight-and-a-half years and is looking forward to rejoining his family.