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TU law students help prisoners get sentences commuted

Posted at 11:47 PM, Dec 05, 2018
and last updated 2018-12-06 00:47:20-05

An emotional day for Governor Mary Fallin as she announced the commutations of 21 prisoners serving sentences for non-violent drug offenses.

A group of University of Tulsa law students worked with Oklahomans For Criminal Justice Reform to help those prisoners get another chance at life outside the walls.

Those law students interviewed hundreds of prisoners at facilities across the state.

The students came up with a plan to get people serving lengthy sentences on a path to rehabilitation and treatment.

Prisoners like Katara Wheeler are starting over…

She’s one of the many who received a commutation.

“This is a second chance for all of us and… I just say take it and run with it you know what I’m saying. Just do good. God blessed us with this you know and we just need to be thankful,” said Wheeler.

“To be able to meet these people when they’ve been working so hard in prison doing their classes and really working on their rehabilitation and then to see them have that hard work pay off today was—there wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” said Colleen McCarty, a second-year law student.

When it’s all said and done the TU law students hope to have a total of 30 peoples' sentences commuted before the end of the year.

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