Path to a Pardon: How a D.C. Lawyer Won Clemency for a Lifer

Thomas (Tim) C. Means, a Washington, D.C.-based partner in Crowell & Moring's  Environment, Energy & Resources Group, is profiled in this article which explores the process of presidential pardons. Means represented Stephanie Yvette George, a 43-year-old Florida woman serving a life sentence for three felony drug offenses, who was one of eight people whose sentences were commuted by President Obama on December 19, 2013. The article notes, "If anybody could help the inmate it was attorney Tim Means, a partner at Crowell & Moring LLP who, when he's not helping mining companies challenge regulatory actions, works for free helping imprisoned drug offenders reduce their sentences. His last pro bono client was the only federal inmate to have a sentence commuted by President Obama in his first term. He also persuaded President George W. Bush to shorten the sentences of two other prisoners." Means remarked, "You have to have a case where a layman looks at it and sees injustice and sees that it makes no sense as a matter of fairness and public policy. We do everything we possibly can to make our case stand out from the rest of the pack."

Crowell & Moring associate Sherrie Armstrong, who is also a member of the firm's Environment, Energy and Resources Group in Washington, D.C., represented George with Means.