Law students in USC Gould’s Post-Conviction Justice Project (PCJP) recently celebrated three major victories after hard-fought battles in Superior Court, and before parole boards and district attorneys.
Law students successfully persuaded a Sacramento County Superior Court to impose a parole-eligible sentence on Dwayne Thomas DeLuna, a client sentenced to life without possibility of parole as a 17-year-old boy.
In another case in Alameda County Superior Court, law students convinced the district attorney to concede to a resentencing for Clemeth Castille, a client serving a life without parole sentence based on extensive mitigation evidence, including the client’s traumatic childhood and growth and rehabilitation during his 20 years of incarceration.
USC law students prepared a successful clemency petition for Maria Arriaga who was only 17 at the time of her crime, and she received one of Governor Brown’s seven Easter sentence commutations.
