CUA Law professor J.P. "Sandy" Ogilvy was quoted in several stories about Timothy J. Tyler, a nonviolent drug offender who was granted clemency by President Obama. CUA Law's Innocence Project Clinic and Clemency Project filed a petition on Tyler's behalf. Professory Ogilvy and recent graduate CUA Law Melissa Saldivar '15 were also interviewed by WUSA 9. See below.

LEGAL AID TO PRISONERS

From: Politico
Date: September 6, 2016
By: Michael Stratford

J.P. "Sandy" Ogilvy, director of the Catholic University's Innocence Project Clinic & Clemency Project, tells Morning Education that one of the top highlights of his 40-years-plus legal career was recently calling inmate Timothy L. Tyler to inform him that he would no longer be serving a life sentence behind bars. Tyler was a former Grateful Dead "Dead Head" sentenced in the early '90s - when he was 24 years old - to life in prison for selling LSD to a government informant. Tyler was one of more than 100 federal prisoners whose sentences were recently commuted by President Barack Obama.

Local college helps inmate win clemency

From: WUSA 9
Date: September 1, 2016
By: John Henry
. . .

In 2015, Catholic University Professor Sandy Ogilvy and students Janette Richardson and Melissa Saldivar submitted an application focused on getting President Barack Obama to commute Tyler's sentence.
. . .

This 'peacenik Deadhead' was set to die behind bars - until Obama granted him clemency

From: Business Insider
Date: August 31, 2016
By: Erin Fuchs and Michelle Mark
...
Sandy Ogilvy, the professor who runs the project, broke the news to Tyler by phone on Tuesday. Tyler's reaction seemed subdued, at first - likely because the call was done over speakerphone in front of prison officials, Ogilvy said.
…
"I'll probably break down later, but thank you very much," Tyler said, according to Ogilvy.
"There's no reason that Tim should have ever been facing a sentence like this," Ogilvy said. "A 10-year-sentence would have been harsh, but reasonable. A life sentence was totally unreasonable."
…
Ogilvy called the clemency initiative "wonderful," but said it doesn't do nearly enough to address the overwhelming amount of people in federal custody with overly harsh sentences.
"Even if [Obama] does 100 commutations a month until he leaves office in January, 2017, he's only going to scratch the surface," he said.

"What's really going to have to take place is for Congress to finally get it together and enact real sentencing reform that gets rid of some of the harsh sentences that we have on the books now."