Carrying the Case Through

For Colorado Law student Chrysten Pacheco ’27, her work in the Immigration Defense Clinic became much more than a semester-long experience. Chrysten spent more than a year advocating for the release of JayDee Russell, who had been serving a 96-year sentence in Colorado for nonviolent offenses. Russell was convicted primarily under the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act (COCCA), along with charges related to motor vehicle theft, drug distribution and manufacturing, and witness tampering. According to Chrysten, the case involved allegations that Russell was part of an operation in which stolen vehicles were sold in exchange for methamphetamine.

After 21 years of incarceration, Russell had received no disciplinary offenses and had built an extensive record of rehabilitation, including working in a prison saddle shop and general maintenance, helping found and lead a CrossFit program at Buena Vista Correctional Facility, and completing numerous programs.

Chrysten began representing Russell last year through the Immigration Defense Clinic, initially pursuing clemency on his behalf. The case took a new direction when For the People, a California-based nonprofit working with prosecutors to review lengthy sentences, became involved through a partnership with the La Plata County District Attorney’s Office.

Chrysten continued the representation as an Advanced Clinic student, working alongside supervising attorney Professor Violeta Chapin. Following our interview, Chrysten and Professor Chapin traveled to Durango and presented Russell’s case to the elected district attorney. Their advocacy was successful: the district attorney agreed to Russell’s release after 21 years in prison.

We spoke with Chrysten about the case before she knew what its outcome would be, her relationship with Russell, and what the experience taught her about the kind of lawyer she wants to become.

Tell me about the client you’ve been working with through the Immigration Defense Clinic.

I started working with Mr. Russell last year. Initially, we were pursuing clemency for him, but the case transformed once we started to work with For the People, an organization based in California that works with prosecutors’ offices to identify people serving long sentences for nonviolent offenses.

My clinic partner and I did all of the work on his case last year, and then my partner graduated. I kept working on it over the summer, and since May, it’s been just me. I did the Advanced Clinic this year so that I could keep working on his case and hopefully get him out of prison.

He’s from New Mexico, just like me, so we hit it off right away. After working with the Korey Wise Innocence Project (KWIP), I really loved the fact that they were getting people out of prison. I thought, if I could do that while I was in law school, even if it wasn’t exonerating somebody who was wrongfully convicted, but helping somebody who was given a really long sentence, that was my goal.

How are you feeling about his chances?

I felt pretty confident about it because the district attorney’s office was the one that decided to work with For the People and have them look at people incarcerated within La Plata County to determine who fit the criteria. For a district attorney’s office to do that, they were obviously at least open to hearing about certain individuals.

I also felt confident because Mr. Russell had been incarcerated for 21 years and had zero disciplinary offenses. That’s unheard of. He had done so many things while incarcerated. When district attorneys want to see rehabilitation, from what he had done in prison, there was no better example.

For me, it was kind of like, if not him, then nobody. These were nonviolent offenses, and he had done everything he possibly could while incarcerated.

Mr. Russell also made you something pretty special to take with you to Durango. Tell me about that.

He works in the saddle shop at Fremont County Correctional Facility, and he had asked me if there was anything I needed. I told him he didn’t need to make me anything.

But he asked me if I had a laptop bag. That was actually something I had been thinking about because a lot of professional attorneys have laptop bags, and I just carry my stuff around in my backpack. I told him I didn’t have one and was going to ask for one for Christmas, and he said, “Well, we want to make you one.”

Part of the reason was to thank me, but he also wanted me to have something I could take to the meeting with the district attorney, so the district attorney could actually feel the bag and see something that Mr. Russell made in person.

I shared with Mr. Russell that I’m Indigenous and Navajo. His family is from the Four Corners area, so he’s very familiar with the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. He asked me about adding a design to the bag, and I asked my dad what he thought. I settled on the Buffalo Warrior because I thought that was very fitting. They were able to etch it onto the bag, and it’s so cool.

After working on this case for more than a year, what has the experience meant to you?

It feels crazy. We were so focused on clemency in the beginning that we didn’t think it was going to turn into this.

While I was putting everything together, I didn’t realize how much about him and his family I had actually learned. When you talk to somebody every week, it’s crazy what you learn about who they are. I’ve met his parents several times. I talk to him every week, and I talk to his family almost every week.

It’s crazy to think about how before I was driving five hours to go see him in Cañon City, and now we’re here. I just really wanted to get him out of prison.

How has your experience in the clinic shaped the kind of attorney you want to be?

The thing that was really emphasized, especially in our clinic, is client-centered representation.

I came to law school because I wanted to represent people who looked like me, who were from the same place as me. The fact that I get to do that in law school in Colorado is pretty crazy.

What I take from the clinic is that you meet people where they’re at. Along the way, you find out that we’re pretty much all the same in certain ways.

I’m going to be a public defender once I graduate. I already secured a job. It’s really about meeting people where they’re at and hearing their stories. It really is about the client, but how cool is it that we get to meet people we wouldn’t have otherwise met and get to help tell their stories?

Do you feel like the clinic helped prepare you for what comes next?

One hundred percent.

The clinic helped me secure an internship with the Federal Public Defender’s Office. The fact that I had already been able to represent clients was really important to my internship and now going into the workforce.

It also gave me opportunities to speak with other members of the criminal legal system. During job interviews, they valued that I had talked to prosecutors, negotiated things, understood immigration consequences and understood post-conviction work, which I also attribute to working with KWIP.

You get a lot of credibility from having done the work in the clinic.