Direct Representation
The Second Look Project (SLP) was founded to provide advocacy and representation to individuals seeking relief from extreme sentences they received as young people in the District of Columbia. D.C. has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, and in recent years, the D.C. Council has enacted legislation that seeks to address mass incarceration by creating a sentence review mechanism called the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act (IRAA). Under its current iteration, IRAA allows those who were under 25 at the time of their offense and have served 15 or more years in prison to petition the trial court for a sentence reduction. SLP was founded to address the burgeoning need for counsel to represent the eligible individuals. We also provide representation in related spaces including Compassionate Release and Parole.
Our work falls into four main categories: (1) direct representation of individuals seeking sentence reductions, (2) the provision of training, consultation and litigation support to pro bono and CJA attorneys handling sentence reduction cases, (3) data sharing and consultation with stakeholders working on related issues in D.C., and (4) reentry support to the project’s clients as well as to pro bono and CJA attorneys representing or assisting clients who have been released. Since the inception of IRAA, hundreds of people, all of whom had been given extreme sentences when they were children or emerging adults, have come home and been able to benefit the D.C. community. SLP has been at the forefront of this litigation – both directly in representing individuals, but also indirectly by serving as the primary organization responsible for recruiting and training attorneys who have offered pro bono representation.