Latham & Watkins Team Secure Clemency Grant for Incarcerated Survivor

Romy Felsen-Parsons

At this year’s Above & Beyond Awards, Sanctuary will honor a Latham & Watkins team for their outstanding work securing a clemency grant for an incarcerated survivor.

At this year’s Above & Beyond Awards, Sanctuary for Families is thrilled to honor Latham & Watkins’ Melange Gavin, Wendy Gu, and Jamie Wine, and former Latham attorneys Brittany Ehardt and Jaclyn Newman, for their outstanding work securing a clemency grant for an incarcerated survivor of gender-based violence.

Last year, we shared on our blog that, after over 10 years of incarceration, domestic violence survivor Jacqueline Smalls had been granted clemency by Governor Kathy Hochul. Today, we are honored to highlight the Above & Beyond honorees who made this happen through their outstanding dedication, creative lawyering, and advocacy. Latham & Watkins associates Melange Gavin and Wendy Gu, and former associates Brittany Ehardt and Jaclyn Newman, with supervision and strategic guidance from partner Jamie Wine, worked with Jacqueline over a period of three years. During this time, they built a strong relationship with their client and worked tirelessly to advocate for her release, focusing on both a Domestic Violence Survivors’ Justice Act (DVSJA) resentencing motion and a clemency grant as possible pathways to her freedom.

Both options posed significant challenges: while a DVSJA motion would reduce Jacqueline’s sentence, resulting in her release for time served under the more favorable DVSJA sentencing guidelines, it would also have required a difficult and retraumatizing resentencing hearing. A clemency grant, meanwhile, relied entirely on the discretion of the governor’s office, and necessitated an enormous amount of work with no guarantee that it would result in success given the low numbers of clemency grants awarded each year. The team ultimately decided to pursue the clemency path anyway, knowing that if it were unsuccessful, they could pivot to a DVSJA motion down the line. As part of this process, the Latham team worked on a comprehensive clemency application that included a video of Jacqueline and other survivor clemency applicants, engaged in extensive legal advocacy, and met with the governor’s clemency bureau.

The case for Jacqueline’s release was extraordinarily compelling. During their two-year relationship, Jacqueline’s partner had subjected her to intense physical abuse—including strangulation, one of the highest lethality risk factors—and had been subsequently arrested several times. On the night of August 26, 2012, Jacqueline’s abuser entered her home in violation of two Orders of Protection that she had obtained against him. As her abuser moved to confront Jacqueline, she stabbed him once with a kitchen knife, killing him. Despite the obvious history of domestic violence, trauma, and clear danger to Jacqueline that evening, prosecutors charged her with second-degree murder. Jacqueline ultimately entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge of first-degree manslaughter and received a 15-year sentence. On December 21, 2022, Governor Hochul announced that she was granting clemency to Jaqueline, along with twelve others. Sanctuary and the Latham team were overjoyed with the news.

We are so thrilled to highlight the incredible work undertaken by Jaclyn, Melange, Wendy, Brittany, and Jamie. Thanks to their advocacy, Jacqueline was released and reunited with her family in January 2023. Staff members from Sanctuary were present alongside the Latham team to welcome Jacqueline home and join her and her family for Jacqueline’s first meal outside prison in over 10 years. It was truly incredible to witness firsthand the warmth and trust that had developed between the team and Jacqueline after their years of fighting together to correct this failure of our criminal legal system.

Director of the Incarcerated Gender Violence Survivors Initiative Ross Kramer said,

“The Latham team’s outstanding legal work made a life-changing impact in this case. They believed in Jacqueline from the start, and they delivered. Their representation gave Jacqueline years of her life back, to spend with family, friends, and community. This would not have happened without the Latham team’s advocacy, creativity, and dedication.”

Latham’s Public Service Counsel and Director of Global Pro Bono Laura Atkinson-Hope concluded,

“Securing clemency for Ms. Smalls was the result of tremendous dedication and tireless effort from the team as well as incredible strategic guidance from Sanctuary for Families. I am so proud of everyone involved in achieving this result, and so grateful for our longstanding partnership with Sanctuary.”

To read more about this incredible case, including our interview with the team, please see here.

Join us at our Above & Beyond Awards Ceremony on October 25, 2023, as we honor Latham & Watkins’ outstanding pro bono work.

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Romy Felsen-Parsons is the Pro Bono Project Assistant at Sanctuary for Families.

Cozen O’Connor Team Secures Survivor’s Release From Prison

Romy Felsen-Parsons

At this year’s Above & Beyond Awards, Sanctuary for Families is thrilled to honor a Cozen O’Connor team who secured their client’s release from prison after more than 10 years of incarceration.

At this year’s Above & Beyond Awards, Sanctuary for Families is thrilled to honor Cozen O’Connor Members Matthew L. Elkin and Emily Shoor, associate Maria Ermakova, and former Cozen O’Connor associate Lisa Coutu. Matt, Emily, Maria, and Lisa spent three years working to secure their client’s release from prison after more than 10 years of incarceration.

We previously wrote a June 2023 Pro Bono Spotlight highlighting the outstanding work of Cozen O’Connor Members Matthew L. Elkin and Emily Shoor, who, together with associate Maria Ermakova and former Cozen associate Lisa Coutu, helped to secure the release of their client, Ms. S, through a Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA)¹  resentencing motion. Without the DVSJA resentencing, Ms. S would have served nearly 15 more years for her manslaughter conviction, in which she stabbed her former partner and abuser after he broke into her home in the middle of the night and attacked her. Incredibly, the dangerous and traumatic history of domestic violence was never brought up for consideration during Ms. S’s trial. We are deeply grateful to Emily, Matt, Maria, and Lisa for investing hundreds of hours into securing freedom for this deeply deserving survivor.

Ms. S, like so many incarcerated women, suffered horrific abuse throughout her life from several intimate partners. The abuse by her now-deceased former partner, Mr. B, included severe sexual, psychological, and physical abuse, including many incidents of strangulation to the point of unconsciousness. The kind of abuse she suffered put Ms. S at significantly high risk of femicide at the hands of her abuser. Ultimately, Ms. S left Mr. B and began to implement an exit strategy. However, the day before Ms. S was scheduled to move, she woke up to realize that Mr. B had broken into her apartment. Mr. B attacked Ms. S, throwing her against a wall and strangling her. To protect herself, Ms. S grabbed a nearby sharp object and stabbed Mr. B once. The blow was not intended to be fatal – in fact, Ms. S immediately began conducting CPR on Mr. B, and she did not know that Mr. B had died until the police revealed it to her in questioning.

As mentioned, shockingly, this history of domestic violence and the circumstances surrounding Mr. B’s death were never raised at trial. Ms. S was acquitted of second degree murder but convicted of manslaughter in the first degree and given the maximum sentence of 25 years.

While incarcerated, Ms. S reached out to Sanctuary for legal assistance. Sanctuary recruited the law firm of Cozen O’Connor to help Ms. S with her case, and Elkin, Shoor, Ermakova, and Coutu eagerly agreed to submit a DVSJA resentencing application on Ms. S’s behalf. Some of this work included compiling letters from her family members, tracking down old documents related to the case, and drafting a comprehensive brief and client affidavit that compellingly illustrated the direct connection between the history of domestic violence and the crime of conviction. To create these materials, the Cozen team met with Ms. S over the course of several years, building a strong relationship based on trust and empathy as they delved back into Ms. S’s extensive trauma history.

Ultimately, after a meeting with the District Attorney’s office to present Ms. S’s story and months of strategic advocacy, the DA consented to the re-sentencing. With that consent, the Judge ordered Ms. S’s release at the first court appearance and she was out of prison and reunited with her family the following afternoon.

Director of the Incarcerated Gender Violence Survivors Initiative Ross Kramer said,

“The Cozen team went ‘above and beyond’ by advocating for Ms. S with skill, tenacity, and persistence over the course of this very long and difficult case. In their three years representing Ms. S, the team gave her hope. For the first time, she believed that attorneys were listening to her, that they believed her, and that they would fight for her. Ms. S was incarcerated for 11 difficult years. But because of the Cozen team’s efforts, more than half her sentence was wiped out. The team literally gave Ms. S back more than a decade of her life – a decade that she can now spend reconnecting with her friends, family and community.”

Cozen Director of Pro Bono Engagement Melinda Levine deLisle concluded,

“I am so proud of the dedication and hard work of the Cozen O’Connor team over the last few years to free Ms. S, and so grateful to Sanctuary for Families for its leadership in this important cause and for giving us the opportunity to contribute.”

We are so grateful to Emily, Matt, Maria, and Lisa for their amazing work and are so thrilled that Ms. S is home at last.

To read more about this incredible case, including our interview with Emily and Matt, please see here.

¹ Criminal Procedure Law § 440.47(1), known as the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA), allows the sentencing court to resentence a domestic violence survivor who suffered sexual, psychological or physical abuse that contributed to their conviction if certain criteria are met.

Join us at our Above & Beyond Awards Ceremony on October 25, 2023, as we honor Cozen O’Connor’s outstanding pro bono work.

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Romy Felsen-Parsons is the Pro Bono Project Assistant at Sanctuary for Families.

Simpson Thacher’s Susan Cordaro Honored for Dedicated Representation of Survivors

Romy Felsen-Parsons

At this year’s Above & Beyond Awards, Sanctuary for Families is thrilled to honor Susan M. Cordaro, Deputy Pro Bono Counsel at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP.

At this year’s Above & Beyond Awards, Sanctuary for Families is honoring Susan M. Cordaro, Deputy Pro Bono Counsel at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, for her outstanding dedication to helping survivors of gender-based violence and her work with numerous pro bono clients within Sanctuary’s Family Law Project and Matrimonial/Economic Justice Project.

For several years, Susan Cordaro has provided compassionate and skilled legal services to dozens of Sanctuary’s clients, delivering trauma-informed legal advice and representation in a range of cases, including appeals, asylum matters, divorces, custody/visitation cases, and orders of protection.

In addition to representing survivors, Susan leads and coordinates the Sanctuary/Simpson Thacher Family Law Screening Project in the Bronx Family Justice Center (Bronx FJC). For the last several years, Simpson Thacher attorneys have participated in Bronx FJC legal screenings conducted by Sanctuary attorneys, during which Simpson Thacher volunteers take detailed notes and then assist with any follow-up pro se assistance or research that the client may need, including drafting pro se petitions. This Project has enhanced our ability to more significantly serve Bronx FJC clients and meet their needs. Susan’s leadership and commitment to the Project has been invaluable to its success. Susan doesn’t just manage the Project for Simpson Thacher, she also supervises, provides advice, and has herself volunteered to participate in many legal screenings. Susan has become so adept at understanding survivor legal needs that she has even started conducting legal screenings on her own.

Karla George, Associate Program Director of Sanctuary’s Bronx FJC Family Law Project, said,

“Susan’s leadership in supervising our screening clinic in the Bronx with Simpson Thacher has been outstanding and life-changing, supplementing our staff resources and enabling us to provide more and deeper services to clients. I have personally enjoyed this collaboration with Susan, who always shows up with positive energy and cares deeply about our clients. We are eternally grateful to Susan and her pro bono team!”

In addition to her work with the screening project, Susan was also nominated for an Above & Beyond award this year for providing direct representation to multiple survivors. She has been indispensable in many cases, and in particular on appeals from Family Court decisions. Two recent cases provide examples of Susan’s critical work with survivors and their families: a grandparent visitation petition won on appeal after the original petition had been dismissed, and a successful appeal from a final order of custody granted to our client.

In the first case, which Susan staffed in the Appellate Division along with Simpson Thacher  former associate Sara L. Estela, Litigation Counsel Sarah Phillips, and Retired Partner Mary Beth Forshaw, and then subsequently in the Family Court with associates Isabel R. Mattson, Lauren Smith, and former associate Rebecca Sussman, the court had originally determined that the grandmother of one of Sanctuary’s clients did not have standing to seek visitation with her grandson. This was particularly troubling given that the grandmother had helped to care for the child during the early years of his life when his father was either not present or was present but extremely abusive toward the child’s mother and neglectful toward his son. Despite this and as a result of a long and unsettling legal history, the father has full custody over the child while our client tragically lost her green card and is unable to re-enter the US to visit her son. Given these circumstances, being able to guarantee the grandmother’s continued presence in the child’s life was critical to his well-being. After two years, an appellate victory, numerous Family Court appearances after remand, and the commencement of a trial, Susan and the team were able to settle the case on very favorable terms.

Sanctuary Senior Staff Attorney Ruchama Cohen, who worked with Susan on this challenging case, said,

“I’m thrilled to see Susan Cordaro recognized for her exceptional work on behalf of our clients. Her skill in the courtroom is matched only by her compassion for her clients. Susan has been a long-time mentor for me personally, and she is an inspiration to those of us at Sanctuary who are privileged to work with her.”

On the second case, Susan won a successful appeal from a Final Order of Custody granted to a survivor in Bronx Family Court after an extensive, highly contested trial, in which the abusive father was granted only email contact with the child, with no visitation. In response to questioning from the bench during oral argument, Susan strategically suggested a tweak to the Order that was adopted by the Appellate Division and, therefore, saved the Order from being struck or remanded for additional hearings.

Senior Program Director of the Family Law Project, Jennifer Friedman, noted,

“This case was extremely hard fought, over many years. … This client and her daughter were severely traumatized by the father, but also by the case. If this case had been remanded, it would have been devastating to them both.”

Susan’s brilliant brief and litigation skills enabled the avoidance of an otherwise catastrophic outcome for this family. On working with Susan in general, Jennifer said,

“Susan is always available, always endeavors to assist us when we ask; always has a positive attitude, and is delightful to work with.  Her commitment to our clients and our work is amazing!”

Pro Bono Counsel and Director at Simpson Thacher, Harlene Katzman, concluded,

“We are incredibly proud of Susan’s leadership of the family law appeals that anchor her pro bono work with Sanctuary for Families. Through this project, Susan provides invaluable hands-on mentoring and guidance to litigation associates who may be writing an appellate brief and arguing in court for the very first time. Susan’s contributions at Simpson Thacher extend far beyond her family law practice. She is a critical part of our pro bono team, sharing her wisdom, experience, strategic thinking and creative solutions to problems big and small. Congratulations Susan on this very well-deserved honor!”

We are deeply grateful to Susan for the incredible time and energy she has put towards serving survivors of gender-based violence.

Join us at our Above & Beyond Awards Ceremony on October 25, 2023, as we honor Simpson Thacher & Bartlett’s outstanding pro bono work.

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Cozen O’Connor: Sanctuary Pro Bono Partner Spotlight

Romy Felsen-Parsons

A spotlight on Sanctuary Pro Bono Partner Cozen O’Connor for their team’s outstanding work in assisting an incarcerated domestic violence survivor on her DVSJA application and helping secure her release.

Sanctuary for Families’ Pro Bono Project has the honor of working with hundreds of extremely dedicated and expert pro bono attorneys per year. As part of our new Pro Bono Spotlight, we’ll be highlighting some of the great work done by Sanctuary pro bono attorneys!

*Please note that this blog contains descriptions of physical and sexual abuse that could be triggering*

Cozen O’Connor Team Help Secure Freedom for Incarcerated Domestic Violence Survivor

We are thrilled to share that another one of Sanctuary’s Incarcerated Gender Violence Survivors Initiative clients, Ms. S, has been released due to the outstanding efforts of a Cozen O’Connor team headed by Members Matthew L. Elkin and Emily Shoor. Matt and Emily, along with their team, spent three years working on Ms. S’s DVSJA resentencing motion, which was approved in March 2023.

After a Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA) resentencing motion granted in March of 2023, Sanctuary’s client, Ms. S, was released after more than 10 years of incarceration for the stabbing death of her severely abusive former intimate partner. Without DVSJA resentencing, she would have served nearly 15 more years for her manslaughter conviction, in which she stabbed her abuser after he broke into her home in the middle of the night, threw her against a wall, and began to strangle her. We are deeply grateful to Matt Elkin and Emily Shoor from Cozen O’Connor for investing hundreds of hours into securing freedom for this survivor.

Like many incarcerated women, Ms. S has been subjected to unconscionable levels of abuse throughout her life, both at the hands of intimate partners and family members. Former partners have subjected her to severe sexual and physical violence, trafficking, forced drug usage, and repeated threats to her life with guns and violence.

The abuse perpetrated by Mr. B, the partner whose death led to Ms. S’s incarceration, began almost immediately after they started dating and escalated rapidly to severe physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. On multiple occasions he strangled Ms. S to the point of unconsciousness. He was jealous and controlling, and would frequently yell at Ms. S in public, break her things, and humiliate her. The abuse she suffered put Ms. S at a significantly high risk of femicide at the hands of her abuser. Under Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell’s widely used Danger Assessment, an escalation of violence, strangulation, sexual assault, violent jealously, and control are all indicators of an increased risk of lethality.

At great risk to her safety, Ms. S left Mr. B and began to implement an exit strategy, changing the locks of her doors, telling family and friends to keep Mr. B away, and planning to move to a new apartment.

However, the day before Ms. S was scheduled to move, she woke up to find Mr. B standing over her, having broken into her apartment. Mr. B attacked Ms. S, throwing her against a wall and strangling her. To protect herself, Ms. S grabbed a nearby sharp object and stabbed Mr. B once. The blow was not intended to be fatal – in fact, Ms. S immediately began conducting CPR on Mr. B, and she did not know that Mr. B had died until the police revealed it to her in questioning.

This history of domestic violence and the circumstances surrounding Mr. B’s death were never raised at trial. Ms. S was acquitted of second degree murder but convicted of manslaughter in the first degree and given the maximum sentence of 25 years.

In her ten-plus years of her incarceration, Ms. S has worked hard to heal from her trauma, taking nonviolent conflict resolution courses and aggression replacement training. She has thrived academically and professionally, holding several jobs at the prison while completing her Associate’s and Bachelor’s Degree, as well as a writing course and a Basic Legal Research and Law Library Management course. During this time, Ms. S also reached out to Sanctuary for legal assistance. After hearing her story Sanctuary recruited the law firm of Cozen O’Connor to help Ms. S, and Cozen O’Connor Members Matt L. Elkin and Emily Shoor agreed to represent Ms. S pro bono on her DVSJA application.

We reached out to Emily and Matt to hear more about their experience working with Ms. S.

What made you want to take on Ms. S’s case? What was your experience like working with her?

Matt: It was very clear from the beginning that Ms. S had lived a really tragic life and tragic circumstances led to her incarceration, but she still had such a positive attitude about her. We could tell that on a day-to-day basis she struggled to maintain [this attitude], day after day and week after week and year after year in Bedford Hills where things didn’t get any better, but she always kept up hope and was enthusiastic to work with us, which made her a tremendous client to work with.

What do you find compelling about DVSJA resentencing cases, as opposed to other cases with incarcerated survivors? What unique challenges and opportunities do they present?

Emily: I think it’s really wonderful that the [DVSJA] legislation opened the door for so many people to seek resentencing for circumstances that weren’t originally considered at their sentencing hearings. Ms. S was serving the maximum sentence for the crime of manslaughter, 25 years. And the DVSJA maximum sentence is only 5 years. So it gives people an opportunity to get their lives back, which is really compelling all on its own.

Which moment in your representation was the most impactful for you?

Matt: The obvious moment is when we were in court, after the judge ordered resentencing, listening to Ms. S express her gratitude to everyone who had a role in her resentencing for giving her this chance to ger her life back . On top of this, Ms. S was resentenced on a Thursday afternoon in Rochester and we were under the impression that she wasn’t going to be able to get out of prison before the weekend because she was incarcerated at Bedford Hills in Westchester. This was one of those things that we’d prepared ourselves and Ms. S for as an unfortunate reality. But that didn’t stop us from trying, and we asked the Judge if she could try to motivate [the Department of] Corrections to get things moving, and then everyone really sprang into action. The DA’s office supported our request; one of the guards who transported Ms. S from prison before the hearing approached the bench and explained the logistics of prisoner transport; the Judge’s law clerks were on the phone with their contacts at DOCCS before the hearing even ended; the team from Willow [Domestic Violence Center] was calling politicians and asking everyone they knew for support. Watching the entire community rally around Ms. S was particularly impactful. She was out of prison by lunchtime the next day, much to everyone’s surprise.

Emily: Also, the assistance that we got from the Monroe County DA, Sandra Doorley and from ADA Patrick Gallagher was amazing. DA Doorley was open minded and agreed to meet with us so we could discuss Ms. S’s case and advocate on her behalf directly. It also gave us the opportunity to “introduce” Ms. S to DA Doorley, by allowing us to convey Ms. S’s story beyond the words on paper. Once the DA’s office consented to the re-sentencing application, their cooperation and assistance proved invaluable. It’s such a unique experience in court to have both sides working to achieve the same result, and the Judge was clearly moved by the cooperation between both sides. It was really the most joyous a criminal courtroom could be.

Anything else you want to mention?

Emily: I’m really grateful to Sanctuary for partnering with firms to give attorneys the opportunity to do this kind of work in conjunction with their mentorship and expertise. Without the IGVSI team, Kayla, Ross, and Isabelle, we would not have been able to do this.

Matt: I also really value the pro bono program at Cozen O’Connor because members of our team were able to devote hundreds and hundreds of hours to this case. If not for a firm that’s truly committed to pro bono work, we would not have been able to devote the resources we needed to preparing Ms. S’s application, visiting her in prison multiple times, and ultimately going up to Rochester to get her resentenced. A lot of law firms talk the talk about pro bono work, but Cozen O’Connor has proven itself as a real leader.

We are so grateful to Emily, Matt, and Cozen O’Connor, and thrilled to welcome Ms. S home!

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