By Derek Gilna
Clemency
relief is something that caught our imagination many months ago, when the BOP
program to apply over Corrlinks got everyone excited. Recently, however, I have come to the
conclusion that the highly-touted BOP
clemency process (not private applications) is about as reliable as that almost daily inmate.com rumor that
Congress is about to reduce federal sentences by one-third. With less than 100
petitions granted out of 20,000 funneled through the BOP
program, one has almost a better chance of hitting the lottery than getting a BOP -generated
clemency.
It’s not that the President’s heart
is not in the right place-it is. You saw
that by the fact that he went to El Reno BOP
clemency process.
Any attorney volunteering (meaning: “unpaid”)
for BOP clemency file review has to endure
four 90-minute training sessions before they are even sent files to
examine. How likely is it that many of
them will follow the process through to completion, given that it is difficult
to even get your attorney to call you back if you are a paying client? It is my opinion that a mere handful of
those BOP applications have been put into
the system for processing. There is no method by which you can check where you
are in the BOP application process.
If you are interested in refilling
your clemency application, I would be pleased to do so at reasonable cost
without delay. Time is running out with
Obama leaving office in 15 months.
And while it is true that Congress
is now finally working on sentence relief, it will take months before we know
whether or not there will be sentence relief, and whether it will be
retroactive. In the meantime, as always, your best hope of relief is someone
with years of navigating the criminal justice system, and will work with you to
win sentence relief.
Federal Legal Center, Inc, an Illinois
Derek A Gilna, Director
P.G. Miller, of counsel
dgilna1948@yahoo.com
