TAMU Law students comment on their fight to free a client

Posted by Texas A&M School of Law on Jul 29, 2020 1:15:00 PM

For the past year, the Texas A&M Law Criminal Defense Clinic has represented a woman in her 60s, sentenced to life in prison in her 50s for a first-time drug offense.  Students, under the guidance of clinic director and professor Amber Baylor, successfully petitioned for compassionate release on her behalf. The court granted a reduction in sentence this May, and the client was released to her family in Dallas.

Texas A&M Law students collaboratively worked in support of the client's application for a reduction of her sentence, to allow her to return home to her children and grandchildren rather than die in prison. A few students visited and interviewed the client at the federal prison where she was incarcerated. The client's cause became urgent once coronavirus began to spread rapidly within US prisons. She had health conditions that made her vulnerable to the virus.

Students adjusted their strategy and motions to request immediate compassionate release. The federal district court judge granted release to the client.

Hear from the students who successfully petitioned for her release.
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Topics: Clinics, Amber Baylor, Texas A&M Law, criminal defense

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About Texas A&M School of Law

Texas A&M School of Law is an American Bar Association-accredited institution located in downtown Fort Worth. Since integrating with Texas A&M University in 2013, the law school has sustained a remarkable upward trajectory — dramatically increasing entering class credentials; improving U.S. News and World Report rankings; hiring more than 30 new faculty members; and adding more than 10 clinics and six global field study destinations. In the past several years the law school has greatly expanded its academic programs to serve the needs of non-lawyer professionals in a variety of complex and highly regulated industries such as cybersecurity, energy and natural resources, finance, and healthcare.

For more information, visit law.tamu.edu.

About Texas A&M University

Texas A&M, established in 1876 as the first public university in Texas, is one of the nation’s largest universities with more than 66,000 students and more than 440,000 living alumni residing in over 150 countries around the world. A tier-one university, Texas A&M holds the rare triple land-, sea- and space-grant designation. Research conducted at Texas A&M represented annual expenditures of more than $905.4 million in fiscal year 2017. Texas A&M’s research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting, in many cases, in economic benefits to the state, nation and world.

About Research at Texas A&M University

As one of the world's leading research institutions, Texas A&M is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represented annual expenditures of more than $905.4 million in fiscal year 2017. Texas A&M ranked in the top 20 of the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development survey (2016), based on expenditures of more than $892.7 million in fiscal year 2016. Texas A&M’s research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting, in many cases, in economic benefits to the state, nation and world.

To learn more, visit http://research.tamu.edu.