Amy Ralston Povah is an American prisoner advocate and the founder of the CAN-DO Foundation. [1]
Povah (then Amy Pofahl) served nine years of a 24-year sentence for conspiracy in an MDMA trafficking case. After several media pieces covering her sentence including a Glamour magazine story by David France, [2] her sentence was commuted by President Bill Clinton on July 7, 2000. [3] [4] [5] [6]
Her sentence was commuted along with the sentences of Louise House, Shawndra Mills, and Serena Nunn; all of whom "..received much more severe sentences than their husbands and boyfriends" according to Clinton White House Press Secretary, Jake Siewert. [7]
On January 20, 2021, she received a full pardon from Donald Trump. [8]
Following her release from prison, Povah founded the CAN-DO foundation to advocate for the release of prisoners serving sentences for non-violent drug offences. [9] [10]
As of August 2020, she has helped more than 100 prisoners receive clemency from the federal government. [11]
She is one of the founders of the National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.
The 1998 book Shattered Lives: Portraits from America’s Drug War featured her.
Her story was featured in the 2016 documentary Incarcerating US. [12]
She directed and produced the 2013 documentary film 420: The Documentary. [13]
Jonathan Jay Pollard is an American former intelligence analyst who was jailed for spying for Israel.
The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional was a Puerto Rican clandestine paramilitary organization that, through direct action, advocated independence for Puerto Rico. It carried out more than 130 bomb attacks in the United States between 1974 and 1983, including a 1975 bombing of the Fraunces Tavern in New York City that killed four people.
The United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB), colloquially known as Leavenworth, is a military correctional facility located on Fort Leavenworth, a United States Army post in Kansas. It is one of two major prisons built on Fort Leavenworth property, the other is the military Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, which opened on 5 October 2010. Together the facilities make up the Military Corrections Complex which is under the command of its commandant, who holds the rank of colonel, and serves as both the Army Corrections Brigade Commander and Deputy commander of The United States Army Corrections Command.
Bill Clinton was criticized for some of his presidential pardons and acts of executive clemency. Pardoning or commuting sentences is a power granted by the Constitution to sitting U.S. presidents. Scholars describe two different models of the pardons process. In the 'agency model' of pardons the process is driven by nonpolitical legal experts in the Department of Justice. In contrast, Clinton followed the 'presidential model', viewing the pardon power as a convenient resource that could be used to advance specific policy goals.
The Office of the Pardon Attorney, part of the United States Department of Justice, assists the president of the United States in his exercise of executive clemency as authorized by Article II, Section 2, of the US Constitution. The office is headed by the Pardon Attorney, with the current incumbent being Elizabeth G. Oyer, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022. It operates under the general oversight of the Deputy Attorney General and in consultation with the Attorney General or their delegate to review and process clemency applications.
Ignacio Ramos is a former United States Border Patrol Agent, who was convicted of shooting an unarmed illegal alien and drug smuggler on the United States–Mexico border. He was convicted of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, and a civil rights violation. On January 19, 2009, his sentence was commuted by President Bush and he was released on February 17, 2009. Ramos was granted a full pardon on December 22, 2020, by President Donald Trump.
Linda Sue Evans is an American radical leftist, who was convicted in connection with violent and deadly militant activities committed as part of her goal to free African-Americans from white oppression. Evans was sentenced in 1987 to 40 years in prison for using false identification to buy firearms and for harboring a fugitive in the 1981 Brinks armored truck robbery, in which two police officers and a guard were killed, and Black Liberation Army members were wounded. In a second case, she was sentenced in 1990 to five years in prison for conspiracy and malicious destruction in connection with eight bombings including the 1983 United States Senate bombing. Her sentence was commuted in 2001 by President Bill Clinton because of its extraordinary length.
Susan Lisa Rosenberg is an American activist, writer, advocate for social justice and prisoners' rights. From the late 1970s into the mid-1980s, Rosenberg was active in the far-left terrorist May 19th Communist Organization ("M19CO") which, according to a contemporaneous FBI report, "openly advocate[d] the overthrow of the U.S. Government through armed struggle and the use of violence". M19CO provided support to an offshoot of the Black Liberation Army, including in armored truck robberies, and later engaged in bombings of government buildings, including the 1983 Capitol bombing.
Oscar López Rivera is a Puerto Rican activist and militant who was a member and suspected leader of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), a clandestine paramilitary organization devoted to Puerto Rican independence that carried out more than 130 bomb attacks in the United States between 1974 and 1983. López Rivera was tried by the United States government for seditious conspiracy, use of force to commit robbery, interstate transportation of firearms, and conspiracy to transport explosives with intent to destroy government property.
Weldon Angelos is a music producer who was sentenced in a high profile marijuana case involving mandatory minimum sentences that was presented to the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case but Angelos was later released from prison 13 years later due to public pressure from celebrities, United States Senators, the judge that sentenced him, and ultimately the prosecutor who prosecuted him.
Amy Sauber Berman Jackson is an American attorney and jurist serving as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
David Michael Dunavant is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee from 2017 to 2021. He formerly served as the District Attorney General for the 25th Judicial District in Tennessee from 2006 to 2017.
Alice Marie Johnson is an American criminal justice reform advocate and former federal prisoner. She was convicted in 1996 for her involvement in a Memphis cocaine trafficking organization and sentenced to life imprisonment. In June 2018, after serving 21 years in prison, she was released from the Federal Correctional Institution, Aliceville, after President Donald Trump granted her clemency, thereby commuting her sentence, effective immediately.
Brittany K. Barnett is an American attorney and criminal justice reform advocate. Through the organization Buried Alive, which she co-founded with Sharanda Jones and Corey Jacobs, she came to national attention when she and her co-counsel, MiAngel Cody, litigated the release of 17 people in 90 days. Her organization has received funding and endorsement from television personality Kim Kardashian. Barnett is also the founder of Girls Embracing Mothers, a non-profit organization that provides support for girls with mothers in prison.
The CAN-DO Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit foundation that fights for the release of nonviolent drug offenders from prison. The foundation educates the public about conspiracy law and advocates for law reform.
Topeka Kimberly Sam is an American advocate for criminal justice reform and a former federal prisoner. She was sentenced to over 10 years in prison in January 2013, after pleading guilty to her role in a drug trafficking conspiracy. Upon her early release from the Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury in 2015, Sam became involved in helping women transition back into society after incarceration. Her advocacy has garnered widespread recognition and awards. President Donald Trump granted a full pardon to Sam on December 23, 2020.