{"id":9810,"date":"2018-09-11T00:36:54","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T05:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.candoclemency.com\/?p=9810"},"modified":"2022-08-19T10:32:30","modified_gmt":"2022-08-19T15:32:30","slug":"corvain-cooper-in-oc-register-will-trump-save-his-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/corvain-cooper-in-oc-register-will-trump-save-his-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Corvain Cooper in OC Register – Will Trump save his life!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barbara Tillis isn\u2019t sure when she\u2019ll get to see her son, Corvain Cooper, again.  (read the entire article here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Every few months for the past four years, Tillis, has driven five hours with her husband, daughter and Cooper\u2019s oldest daughter, making the trip from Rialto to the federal prison in Atwater, near Merced. They\u2019d spend the day visiting and chatting, and guards would let each family member give Cooper exactly one hug. When the visit was over, they\u2019d reluctantly pile into the car and drive home.
\n\"\"But that routine ended a month ago. Cooper was transferred to a federal prison in Louisiana, and Tillis said her family can\u2019t afford that trip.<\/p>\n

Amy Povah, founder of the nonprofit Clemency for All Non-Violent Drug Offenders, or CAN-DO, included Cooper on a list of prisoners she believes deserve clemency. A week ago, Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s niece, Alveda King, delivered that list of roughly 100 names \u2014 including Cooper \u2014 to the White House.<\/p>\n

King called it \u201coutrageous\u201d for people to be serving long sentences for marijuana. And while she said she couldn\u2019t discuss details of how Trump is handling clemency cases, she said, \u201cI do believe that the President is very genuine about prison reform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Povah said Cooper\u2019s case highlights a number of persistent problems with the criminal justice system, from how defendants who refuse plea deals are penalized to the seemingly unequal application of drug conspiracy laws and mandatory minimum sentences.<\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s case also stands out, she said, because unlike other \u201cpot lifers\u201d he wasn\u2019t locked up years ago, at the height of the war on drugs. Cooper received a life sentence for a non-violent marijuana crime during President Barack Obama\u2019s administration, just four months before Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize the recreational use of cannabis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely heinous to think that people can now legally work in this field, and invest in it for something that someone else is serving life in prison for \u2013 or any sentence, for that matter,\u201d Povah said.<\/p>\n

That conflict is central to a documentary expected out in early 2019, which will feature Cooper\u2019s story. It\u2019s also why Cooper\u2019s portrait and letters are included in the \u201cPot Lifer Museum,\u201d opening soon inside a marijuana dispensary in Ojai. And it\u2019s a reason cited by many of the 15,000 people who\u2019ve so far signed a Change.org petition<\/a> calling for Cooper\u2019s release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barbara Tillis isn\u2019t sure when she\u2019ll get to see her son, Corvain Cooper, again.  (read the entire article here) Every few months for the past four years, Tillis, has driven five hours with her husband, daughter and Cooper\u2019s oldest daughter, making the trip from Rialto to the federal prison in Atwater, near Merced. They\u2019d spend the day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9815,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,4],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-9810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-can-do-media","category-can-do-news","tag-can-do-clemency"],"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Screen-Shot-2018-09-11-at-12.40.35-AM.png",119,112,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Amy Ralston Povah","author_link":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/author\/candoamy\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":40,"name":"CAN-DO in the Media","slug":"can-do-media","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":40,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":199,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":40,"category_count":199,"category_description":"","cat_name":"CAN-DO in the Media","category_nicename":"can-do-media","category_parent":0},{"term_id":4,"name":"CAN-DO News","slug":"can-do-news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":4,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":224,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":4,"category_count":224,"category_description":"","cat_name":"CAN-DO News","category_nicename":"can-do-news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":32,"name":"CAN-DO Foundation","slug":"can-do-clemency","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":32,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":33,"filter":"raw"}],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":40,"label":"CAN-DO in the Media"},{"value":4,"label":"CAN-DO News"}],"post_tag":[{"value":32,"label":"CAN-DO Foundation"}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14636,"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9810\/revisions\/14636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheryanne.com\/cando-new2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}