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27 Clinical L. Rev. 39 (2020-2021)
Narrating Context and Rehabilitating Rehabilitation: Federal Sentencing Work in Yale Law School's Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic

handle is hein.journals/clinic27 and id is 45 raw text is: NARRATING CONTEXT AND REHABILITATING REHABILITATION: FEDERAL SENTENCING WORK IN YALE LAW SCHOOL'S CHALLENGING MASS INCARCERATION CLINIC MIRIAM GOHARA' 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 prac- tice that builds on the best capital defense sentencing practices and seeks to transform judges' and prosecutors' assumptions about crimi- nal sentencing. In this article, I set forth CMIC's theoretical underpinnings and detail our interdisciplinary, trauma-informed approach to sentencing advocacy and clinical practice. I then describe CMIC's case outcomes, including variances which have reduced each of our clients' prison time an average of five years below the United States Sentencing Guidelines range and more than 18 months below prosecutors' recom- mended sentences. CMIC's work has also produced innovations to traditional client-centered, holistic lawyering; enhanced approaches to working with experts; and yielded insights into the incorporation of defense-based victim outreach in appropriate cases. Our experiences in CMIC raise several areas for future research, including whether the model will produce the kind of fundamental sentencing reform I predicted in my earlier work, and questions about fairness, risks, data, and scalability. I am publishing this article with the hope and intention that other law school clinics will borrow from and improve on CMIC's model. 1 Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Yale Law School. Many thanks to Matt Kellner for invaluable research assistance, to Olivia Layug Balbarin and Kate Levien for careful edits, and to Muneer Ahmed, Tracey Meares, Jeff Selbin, Fiona Doherty, Oona Hathaway, and Claire Priest as well as to members of the Fall 2019 NYU Clinical Writers' Workshop for essential feedback and excellent suggestions. Special thanks to First Assistant Federal Defender Kelly Barrett, with whom I co-teach CMIC and who has been an essential thought partner to me and cherished role model and mentor to our students. Finally, enor- mous thanks to Brett Dignam, who introduced me to the wonders of clinical teaching and on whose shoulders I stand. 39

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