Jones had been a model inmate, taking dozens of classes and mentoring other prisoners, but no amount of good behavior would get her out. The only option was clemency from the president.
By November 2013, Byrd was at a private law firm in Dallas and also running an organization for inmates and their daughters. Working pro bono, she filed a clemency petition for Jones with the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney and the White House counsel and included a petition signed by thousands, letters of support from local churches and a job offer for Jones.
“There is no doubt that Sharanda’s crime harmed society,” Byrd wrote in a 200-page petition. “However, there is also no doubt that she has been hurt back and paid her debt to society by serving the past 14 years of her life in prison as a first-time nonviolent offender and being away from her one and only child.”
Byrd received no response, but more than a year later the Obama administration began its clemency initiative. Jones appeared to meet the criteria.
“I got really excited,” Byrd said. She filed a supplemental petition to her original application that included a letter from Jones to Obama.
“I began dealing drugs out of desperation to be able to sufficiently support myself and my family,” Jones wrote. “I now understand to the fullest level the destruction caused by drugs. I take full responsibility for my actions and know that I deserve to be punished ... but for the rest of my life for my first ever arrest and conviction? ... My deepest sorrow is being separated from my only child, Clenesha.”
Byrd heard nothing for months. In late March, she received a phone call from the pardon attorney’s office. Obama had granted clemency to 22 inmates, including another of Byrd’s clients, a young man who had served 22 years for a nonviolent drug offense. She was ecstatic to call the prison and tell him.
But she had one question.
“What about Sharanda Jones?” she asked. The official on the other end of the line said she didn’t know anything about Jones.
“It was a bittersweet day,” Byrd recalled. “I was elated. But I just kept thinking about Sharanda and how she would feel when she saw her name wasn’t on that list.”
Nor did it appear on the new list released Monday by Obama.
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