The story of a 42-year-old woman who is hoping to have her civil rights restored is an example of how federal sentencing guidelines for drug crimes can have an impact on convicts in Denver long after they have finished serving their time.

The woman is a law school graduate living in Atlanta. She works in the public defender's office there and wants to help defend people as an attorney. But in 1989, when she was 19, she was convicted of helping her then-boyfriend distribute cocaine. Though she was far from a big-time dealer, the mandatory sentencing minimum imposed by federal law forced the judge in her case to sentence her to 15 years and eight months in prison.

She served eight years before an attorney volunteered to petition the President to commute her sentence. She had the support of the judge who sentenced her, who wrote that without mandatory minimums, "no judge in America, including me, would have sentenced [the woman] to 15 years in prison based on her role" in the drug crimes. President Clinton commuted her sentence in July 2000, freeing her.

Now out of prison, the woman pursued her dream of becoming an attorney. She graduated from college and law school, but because of the felony conviction on her record, she has no chance of being licensed to practice law in her state. She has filed a petition with the Justice Department to have President Obama issue a pardon, which would wipe away the felony, but that process can take five years or more.

Source: ProPublica, "Starting Over: When Presidential Forgiveness Changes a Life," Dafna Linzer, Dec. 03, 2011