“In 2014, Obama announced his Clemency Project (CP14), intended for incarcerated people like Kavitz who were sentenced under overly draconian mandatory minimum and conspiracy laws. The program, which former Attorney General Eric Holder estimated could give upwards of 10,000 incarcerated people a chance at freedom, was created for people who meet certain criteria:
1. Currently serving a federal sentence in prison
2. Would have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of the same offense(s) today (i.e., non-violent, low-level offenders without significant ties to large-scale criminal organizations, those having served at least 10 years of their prison sentence, and those having demonstrated good conduct in prison).
Lori Kavitz is a mother of two boys, and is exactly the kind of prisoner this program was created for and yet, her clemency request was denied just last week. Advocates have no idea why. Meanwhile, men with much more significant criminal histories have already received clemency under the project.”