In 2015, the Defenders Clinic answered a call on behalf of Judy Clark, a woman serving a sentence of 75 years to life. She was sentenced to die in prison. Death by incarceration has only one remedy: clemency granted by New York’s Governor, who has the power to commute the sentence of anyone, for any reason, regardless of their original sentence or crime of conviction.
As the Defenders began working with Judy, her family, and a network of supporters and advocacy organizations, word began to spread inside prisons that a law school was working on a clemency case. Letters poured into the Clinic from people serving massive sentences looking for assistance; in a matter of months, the Clinic had hundreds of requests for help from people inside and their families.
While people seeking to be exonerated can look to Innocence Projects, and those seeking to challenge a legal ruling can reach out to appellate organizations, there is no legal or advocacy organization nor outfit of any kind that works with people seeking clemency.
It is of this need that The Second Look Project is born.
The Second Look Project worked with Ulysses Boyd, pictured with loved ones in this polaroid collage.
This Defenders Clinic’s initiative works with people seeking clemency and parole, reaches out to media to shed light on the state’s punishment paradigm, advocates for legislative fixes, and works with community-based organizations to try and rectify this living legacy of mass incarceration.
The Second Look Project looks to organizations and advocates with connections to and experiences with mass incarceration, the majority of whom are Black and Latinx, for partnership and leadership. Among the letters that continue to arrive daily are invitations to connect with organizations inside several prisons, including the Caribbean African Unity organization and the Project for a Calculated Transition (PACT) program at Green Haven Correctional Facility, and the Lifers and Longtermers Organizations at Sing Sing and Otisville Correctional Facilities. The collective discussions focus on decarceration through clemency, parole, compassionate release, resentencing motions, legislative remedies, and the need for grassroots community-based advocacy and leadership.
At the core of this model are the CUNY Law students whose clinical experience centers on the individual representation and policy advocacy of The Second Look Project. In January each year, about 28 students in the Defenders Clinic are assigned in pairs to work with one person. Students first reach out by mail and soon thereafter arrange for a legal phone call to begin the process of working to establish a relationship of mutual trust and respect. Students then travel to have in-person meetings with those they assist; even in the face of COVID-19 students were undeterred, taking every available precaution and managing to make meetings happen.
The Second Look Project worked with Lance Sessoms, pictured here smiling with his car as a young man
In a letter to the Second Look Project team, one person shared that “the students really helped me and made the process very comfortable. Their help was not only legally sound, but therapeutic and healing.” Many such letters are saved and archived as testimony and rem
inders of why the work matters, especially when the odds are daunting.
“To apply a mixed metaphor in granting clemency in this instance,” wrote another person, “it would be like ‘finding a unicorn in a haystack.’ But public opinion can change and stranger things have happened…When life presents its bleakest moments, there always remains the intangible element of hope.”
As one person wrote to them, “As nervous as I was, I am grateful for the opportunity to tell my story, to be heard. It’s the first time in thirty years that I was given the chance.”
All of the conversations build to teams submitting an advocacy packet and collaborating with colleagues at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and Bard College to film interviews for each person with which they work.
The Second Look Project works with about 15 people each year, having assisted 75 people to date– 25 of whom are now home. Many were teenagers, as young as 16 when arrested. Many are now elderly or ill. Many have achieved remarkable things within the harsh, violent, and unforgiving confines of prison. Many have spent decades in a cage and just yearn to be home.
The Second Look Project is built on the belief that while one team’s work might be barely a drop in the decarceration bucket, redemption, and justice for every life matters. Eventually, it could become an initiative we see scaled and funded across law schools or communities. Their work advocates for mass clemency as one path toward prison abolition – in one day, today, with the stroke of a pen, a Governor could set countless people free. The punishment paradigm that led the way toward 2.3 million people behind bars is a vestige of slavery, a stain on humanity. The Second Look Project hopes that elevating individuals will compel their release and a larger movement to decarcerate and abolish prisons.
The people the team worked with this past year are serving sentences ranging from 18 years to life to 75 years to life. They have already served between 10 and 35 years. They range in age from 28 to 68. Every one of them should be home and yet clemency is all too rarely granted. The Second Look Project’s initial letter to people they hope to work with notes that the road to clemency is very long. In response, one person wrote the following: “Yes, but a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”