Hear from clients featured in Seattle Clemency Project’s upcoming 2023 Impact Report
By Brooke Kaufman | Communications Specialist
David Ros is pictured with his son Solomon and the advocate team who volunteered on his pardon case.
The Seattle Clemency Project (SCP) will soon release its 2023 Impact Report, featuring the stories of remarkable clients and their volunteer lawyers. The report outlines SCP’s Early Release, Immigrant Post-Conviction Relief, and Reentry & Mentoring programs. In doing so, the writing centers attention on the courageous and hardworking individuals who pursue clemency and relief from decades-old convictions. Here are excerpts of stories from David Ros, Sokha Thorng, Alyssa Knight, and Freddie Hampton.
Immigrant Post-Conviction Relief Program: Preventing Deportation and Keeping Families Together
SCP’s Immigrant Post-Conviction Relief (IPCR) Program matches immigrants who have served time for offenses committed years ago with free legal assistance. Our volunteer attorneys work to secure post-conviction relief for their clients to ensure individuals facing deportation may return to immigration court and have their order for removal terminated. Many IPCR clients face deportation to countries they fled as child refugees. They grew up in Seattle and went on to raise families, own businesses, and become leaders in their community. Though our clients have served their sentences and turned their lives around, many live with the constant fear of being detained and deported to a country they don’t recognize. IPCR attorneys represent our clients to ensure they remain with their families, where they belong.
David Ros
David Ros was five years old when he and his family left Cambodia. They spent three years in refugee camps in Thailand and Indonesia before being granted entry into the United States. Ros was living under an order of removal for offenses he committed at 16 when his friend Manny — one of the first Cambodians David knew to receive a pardon — referred him to IPCR Program Manager Louise Bush and Henry Hwang, a directing attorney with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. Together, they matched David with a volunteer legal team from Perkins Coie, who represented him at his pardon hearing in September 2022. In December, Governor Inslee signed off on his pardon; David chose to surprise his family with the good news over Christmas. He says that after an excruciating application process, their tears of joy affirmed his hard work and emotional labor to receive a pardon. “I had to relive everything over and over again. It was the most excruciating time. I would shy away from writing about my story, but I knew I had to.” Before the pardon hearing, David says he felt “talked out.” It had been a long healing process of growing up and moving past the offenses of his youth. While the attorney team wanted David to lean into his emotions and be vulnerable, to show the board the full extent of his self-transformation, it was only when he saw his family and his 11-year-old son Solomon testify on his behalf that David opened himself up to revisiting the past.
While waiting to hear the status of his removal order, David focuses on his job as a certified dialysis technician in nursing homes and advocacy work on immigration policies between Cambodia and the United States. He has also visited prisons to speak about the struggles of reacclimatizing to life post-incarceration. David now lives in Long Beach, CA, which has a robust Cambodian community, with Solomon and his mother, for whom he is the sole caretaker. Solomon is “whip-smart” and active in his local church and youth football programs. With David’s guidance, he is learning to have a balanced perspective on morals, politics, and cultures. Empathy, however, is something Solomon learned all on his own. “When we were [leaving Washington State for Long Beach], Solomon could see I was upset [about things that happened within our family]. He reached over to me and said, ‘Dad, everything will be alright.’ He was only five or six at the time. I was floored.”
Sokha Thorng
Sokha Thorng and his family.
Sokha Thorng spent over 20 years on the deportation list. When he was released from prison in December 1999, Cambodia wasn’t accepting deportees, so Sokha began a decades-long process of anxiously notifying family and friends before his check-ins. To keep his mind occupied, he worked — a lot. Sokha was employed at an office furniture supply business before working as a project manager for Tang Real Estate, which does single-family home construction from the ground up. Eventually, he came across a Facebook page and an advocate from Tacoma who sent him the application form for the IPCR program. Sokha met with Project Manager Louise Bush and Henry Hwang, a directing attorney with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, who matched him with an advocate from Perkins Coie to assist with the vacate and pardon process. Initially, Sokha says the hearing process “didn’t seem doable.” Until the mid-2010s, when he began making substantial changes in his life, Sokha didn't feel “deserving” of post-conviction relief. After meeting Henry, however, he “got his head on straight” and began preparing for the emotionally taxing parts of the process that required him to bring up painful memories. Looking back, he says that the constant threat of deportation likely “stunted his growth” and prevented him from fully focusing on his education, career, and marriage. His past life is “totally unrelatable now,” and since receiving his pardon — a moment he describes as a “defining experience — Sokha has begun the citizenship application process. He remains focused on his work and recently acquired real estate to start construction on townhomes as a personal project. Sokha supports his three children and is rebuilding his relationship with his mother, who lives nearby. With the check-ins behind him, Sokha is most looking forward to traveling the world. His first stop? Ideally, Morocco. Maybe a layover in Paris on the way home. There’s also the possibility of a company trip to Mexico or Vietnam once he receives his passport. For Sokha, the future is open and bright.
Ensuring no woman is left behind
Data shows that, since 1980, the number of women in prison has increased by over 800%. However, the face of the early release process largely remains male, and the unique struggles of incarcerated women fail to garner the attention they deserve. As a justice organization, it’s our job to advocate for women behind bars in Washington and, in the process, demonstrate the value of their stories to the reform movement.
Alyssa Knight
Alyssa Knight and her family on the day of her release.
In 2004, Alyssa Knight was sentenced to 270 months in prison. After serving 18 years, Alyssa was granted clemency with the help of SCP advocates Richard Monroe, Mika Kurose Rothman, and Jon Zulauf. While incarcerated at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW), Alyssa helped found Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS), a liberal arts college program for women, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people inside Washington women’s prisons. She held several jobs as a computer-aided drafter for Correctional Industries, craft room clerk, reader for students with disabilities, and employee with the Prison Pet Partnership. Alyssa also devoted time to serving as a member of the FEPPS advisory board, an institutional facilitator, a tier representative, a counselor on parenting from a distance, and an instructor for nonviolent communication and self-empowerment classes. She was a role model to incoming women, younger women up for release, and those who needed the inspiration to begin living purposefully.
Following her release in March 2021, Alyssa began working as a dog groomer. She went on to enroll in the University of Washington’s Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies program, where she currently researches the explicit and implicit implementation of gender through the Department of Corrections’ policies.
“I am looking at the ways that [DOC] frames gender in their overall vision and proposals for prison operations,” Alyssa said. “I am interested in the creation of the category ‘woman’ in the carceral space and, historically, how that has morphed over time while remaining an axis of control over bodies. The archive I am working with consists of documents from the early 1900s to the late 1980s, covering both the Maple Lane School for Girls and Purdy Treatment Center, which later became WCCW."
This spring, Alyssa is interning with the Disability Rights of Washington, visiting prisons across the state to “facilitate peer-to-peer civic engagement training” and compare overall climates and access to programming between men's and women’s prisons. She was drawn to gender studies and the UW program through an interest in the incarcerated transgender community. Alyssa’s studies center around the impact of binaries and gender-segregated prisons on people who are gender-nonconforming. Outside of school, she co-founded Beyond Bars and Binaries, which offers financial and other forms of aid to transgender people released from prison and provides a support group for transgender and nonbinary incarcerated people at WCCW. Alyssa also participated in The Women’s Village, which aims to expand access to programming, resources, and reentry services in women’s prisons.
“[The organization] started when a group of women who were all thriving in prison despite long sentences and little resources worked together with one of the mental health providers to think through how they might share their skills of resiliency and overall strength with others,” Alyssa said. “This, in large part, was because the needs of incarcerated people were not being met by DOC, and we wanted to create a mutual aid network to serve our own population.”
This network came to include resources such as transitional housing information, GED tutoring, computer courses, resume writing workshops, and leadership training, among other opportunities. However, funding availability, which differs between facilities, is a persistent barrier to sustaining such forms of aid.
“Funding for programs in the women's prison was [and continues to be] much smaller than what is allotted for the men's institutions, [and that’s] simply due to the numbers,” Alyssa said. “As a result, we had to create programming and reentry opportunities for ourselves. Before FEPPS was formed, a common goal we all shared was the desire to earn a degree. We began hosting meetings with interested professors through The Village to advocate for [an improved education] program. I was part of the brainstorming sessions that grew into Critical Inquiry, where we analyzed texts to think through power dynamics and larger philosophical questions that would come into play as we built a higher education program within the prison. The Village continues to amass informational resources and is slowly opening back up for other services [after the COVID-19 pandemic].”
As she continues her advocacy for people inside and who are being released from women’s prisons, Alyssa considers how identity stratifies the experience of incarceration and, more importantly, a person’s ability to secure release. While everyone in prison “has their freedom encroached upon” and experiences “inhumane” treatment, not everyone has equal access to the resources and opportunities that give rise to a second chance. Whether it’s funding and staffing issues, or more critical factors like gender and race, the problem is there. It’s up to us to address it.
Early Release from Prison Program: Advocating for People Applying for Clemency
Two landmark changes in Washington’s criminal legal landscape led to a drastic rise in the state’s incarcerated population: the abolishment of parole in 1984 and the implementation of the three strikes law and other harsh sentencing policies in 1993. Since then, life and de facto life sentences have proliferated. Today, nearly 20% of the state’s incarcerated population has no avenue for release except for, in some instances, the clemency process. SCP matches people applying for clemency with free legal representation to ensure their cases are given meaningful and extensive review. Through the clemency process, people who have turned their lives around and accepted accountability for their actions are recognized for their growth and commitment to change. Our volunteer lawyers assist in drafting petitions that highlight our clients’ exceptional successes in the face of overwhelming obstacles. Advocates also work with our Reentry & Mentoring Program to create a strong support network for clients once they return to the community.
Freddie Hampton
Freddie Hampton and SCP’s Reentry Program Director Anthony Powers.
In late 2000, Freddie Hampton was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) under Washington State’s three-strikes law. None of his crimes involved violence or the use of weapons; he was sent to prison after committing a third felony bank robbery while houseless and struggling with drug dependency. Had Freddie been given a standard-range sentence, he would have been eligible for release in 2004. Instead, he spent over 20 years in prison. In the history of the state’s three-strikes law, only 16 people have been sentenced to LWOP for three second-degree robbery convictions. While Freddie was incarcerated, just one person received the same sentence for this series of offenses.
But it’s not Freddie’s sentence that makes him exceptional; it’s what he chose to do in the aftermath. In the words of his advocates, Freddie “pursued every available opportunity for community engagement and self-improvement" while in prison. He involved himself in groups that supported his religious faith, military service, personal growth, and mentorship abilities. Freddie also held various jobs and participated in programming that “allowed him to gain more insight and perspective about the trajectory” of his life. As a spiritual leader in the Muslim community, he encouraged the younger men to follow a path of honesty and responsibility. He has been sober since the date of his incarceration and remains committed to a life of purpose.
In January 2021, Freddie was granted a sentence commutation with the help of his advocates, DC Wolf, Katie Christensen, Thomas Wolfendale, Gabrielle Thompson, and Shelby Stoner. In the years he spent preparing for the hearing, Freddie worked tremendously hard to demonstrate his maturity and propensity for release. Since then, he has remained focused on “moving forward, staying positive, and not letting anything get [him] down.” Freddie believes in building a life of long-term stability and has established financial independence through his job. His family support network is broad, and despite living in different states, he keeps in touch with his three siblings, four children, and seven grandchildren. Freddie is also an outspoken advocate for legislation that would amend the three-strikes law. He has met with senators and legislators to discuss the consequences of three-strikes and “how [their actions] affect the guys that are incarcerated and whether they get their time reduced or have a release date at all.”
Freddie has also pursued new passions, such as sewing. While incarcerated, he began working with textiles and learned to sew uniforms, clothing, and blankets. Since 2021, he has honed his craft and developed a business plan to sell clothes and specialty costumes on platforms like Etsy and Facebook Marketplace. For now, he’s working on setting up his at-home sewing machine station and dreaming up new products to create for his friends and customers.
“Now, I have to take all the little things I learned [about sewing while incarcerated] and put them together to make the clothes that I want to make,” Freddie said. “I have a deep-seated desire to [build this business], and I won’t let it go to waste. Once you get into it and see the finished product, that's what gets you. You say, 'Man, I did that.' And you enjoyed it, and you lost yourself in doing it. That's where the fun comes."
Bolstered by his faith and a sense of personal responsibility, Freddie looks ahead, hopeful for what’s to come.
“It’s easy to [choose the wrong path or feel hopeless], but it’s hard to stand up and be a reliable person for other people,” Freddie said. “I [return to this often] when I think things could be easier. But then I’m not really doing anything; I’m just floating along. And there’s nothing to that, so I prefer to jump in and help people wherever I can.”
