Narrating Context and Rehabilitating Rehabilitation: Federal Sentencing Work in Yale Law School’s Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic
The title of this post is the title of this notable new article authored by Miriam Gohara now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:
The Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic (CMIC) at Yale Law School has been representing clients in federal sentencing and state postconviction cases since 2016. Drawing on a blueprint I set forth in a 2013 article, the clinic teaches a model of noncapital sentencing practice that builds on the best capital defense sentencing practices and seeks to transform judges’ and prosecutors’ assumptions about criminal sentencing.
Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic Secures Historic Sentence Modification
In the Press
Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic Secures Historic Sentence Modification
Four years ago, Connecticut garnered national recognition for its innovative, rehabilitation-focused TRUE Unit at the Cheshire Correctional Institution. Now, one of the unit’s mentors has been granted a second chance, succeeding in winning an unprecedented sentence modification.
On January 15, 2021, Judge David Gold of the Hartford Superior Court announced his decision resentencing Clyde Meikle, a Yale Law School Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic (CMIC) client, to 28 years from the 50 to which he was originally sentenced for fatally shooting his cousin.
On Friday, December 18, 2020, Meikle and his legal team, led by Clinical Associate Professor of Law Miriam Gohara and five CMIC Yale Law School students, appeared at a hearing in Hartford Superior Court to modify Meikle’s sentence to reflect his record of re