Executive clemency was our catalyst, but our Project has since expanded to encompass any mechanisms, including judicial, for a “second look” at excessive prison sentences. In February, 2024, we secured the release of the first individual to benefit from Minnesota's felony murder reform statute. In August 2024, we filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of Minnesota urging expansive appellate review of denials under this reform statute to ensure its intended purpose of a robust and complete correction of past injustices. In the spring of 2024, the Project secured the release of two federal prisoners under the “reduction in sentence” statute, colloquially known as compassionate release: one who had been sexually abused by a prison officer and another whose eight-year term of supervised release on home confinement impeded her full integration into society. In November 2024, with the support of the Brooklyn District Attorney, the Project secured a reduction in sentence for one of our New York State clemency clients, who we had taken on in 2017. NV had been sentenced to 50 years to life for his role in tragic shootings during a robbery he committed at the age of 22, and the reduction made him immediately eligible for parole. In December 2024, after 42 years in prison with an exemplary record, NV was granted parole and he was released in January 2025. 

In January 2024, the Project settled its class action against the Minnesota Department of Corrections, filed with the ACLU and the LAMP clinic from Mitchell-Hamline School of Law, ensuring that those released from prison during the COVID pandemic and thriving in the community would not be returned to prison to complete their sentences.  In the spring of 2024, Project students fanned out to parole hearings at several prisons to represent four clemency clients who were juveniles at the time of their offenses, securing favorable outcomes for two of the four. Over spring break in 2024, the Project traveled to the Netherlands to study innovative prosecutorial, sentencing and prison policies, and presented their observations at a public event at the Law School. In July, 2024, the Project submitted a proposal to the U. S. Sentencing Commission, based on the Project’s 2024 visit to the Netherlands and 2023 visit to Norway, that the Commission study foreign penal systems for useful insights on potential reforms to be implemented in the U.S. In October, 2024, Project Director JaneAnne Murray spoke at a forum on the issue of sexual abuse of prisoners. The Project worked for the past year with Violence Free Minnesota to generate legislative support for the Survivor Justice Act, previously introduced in the 2021-22 session, to ensure leniency, past and future, for individuals whose crimes were causally connected to experiences of trauma and abuse.

We have a busy docket of pending federal and state clemency petitions, including hearings before the Minnesota Board of Pardons and the Juvenile Supervised Release Board in the coming months, as well as several federal reduction in sentence (compassionate release) motions. We are traveling to the UK in the spring to study its criminal and penal legal systems. We continue to advocate for the Survivor Justice Act. We have several amicus brief projects in the works too.