Our first client was Mr. Steven Prease. While in prison, Mr. Prease got sober and received treatment for the PTSD that he suffered after his years in the military. Virginia Department of Corrections told him he would be released as a result of his hard work, so he asked a friend to plant a garden he could harvest upon his release at his mother’s house in southwest Virginia. He planned a camping trip with his 16-year old son.
But he never got to take it. In fact, he missed his son’s high school graduation two years later – all because Virginia Department of Corrections refused to recognize his hard work.
Learning he would not be going home after all felt like “a gut punch. I was about to get out to see my kid. It was time for me to be there to teach him things. When he comes for visitation, I can tell this has been hard on him too."
We took Mr. Prease’s case all the way to the Supreme Court of Virginia, and in July 2023, the highest court in the Commonwealth agreed that Mr. Prease’s hard work should be honored. And it agreed that the attorney general had wrongfully interpreted the law to deny him — and others like him with the same conviction — credits they had earned.
He was finally released that summer, free to see his son, start a business, and return to his life.
Next, we argued that Virginia Department of Corrections should honor Mr. Antoine Anderson's credits, too. But this time, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled against us in a decision that had implications for both Mr. Anderson and other people like him.
“How can you grant freedom to someone and then just take it away like someone’s life doesn’t matter?”
The ruling meant that people serving mixed sentences for crimes that both are and are not eligible for earned sentence credits would not be eligible to earn any additional credits. The ruling was extremely disappointing.
“How can you grant freedom to someone and then just take it away like someone’s life doesn’t matter?” said Niya Anderson, Mr. Anderson’s daughter, who was looking forward to seeing her father outside of prison for the first time. “When I learned that my dad was not coming home after he was told he was coming home early, I was devastated.”
So we kept fighting. Next we filed a lawsuit on behalf of two people, Mr. Leslie Puryear and Mr. Jose Garcia Vasquez. One, Mr. Leslie Puryear, was released when our lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Prease resulted in a change in policy that finally honored Mr. Puryear's hard work, too, and the hard work of people with convictions similar to his.
He got home in time to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. Less than six months later, our last client, Mr. Jose Garcia Vasquez, was finally released, too, when the Supreme Court of Virginia agreed with us that he and many others had worked hard to earn it.
Mr. Garcia Vasquez had never seen his daughter – now a second grader. Yet, in between completing college classes, an electrician course, and working 30 hours every week in a prison job, he squeezed in time to talk to her every single day on the phone. When he was released, they finally met in person for the very first time.
