Last week Andy Cox was sitting in a federal prison in California serving out a life sentence on a 2008 jury conviction for growing marijuana plants in the forest on his father’s property. This week, thanks to the work of a Goodwin Procter team led by the firm’s cannabis practice co-chair Brett Schuman, Cox, 57, is at home with his family in Florida.

Schuman and his team successfully petitioned a federal judge in Georgia to grant Cox compassionate release after first convincing federal prosecutors not to oppose them. They argued that Cox’s age and health conditions made him especially susceptible to COVID-19 in prison. The Goodwin team, which partnered with the Last Prisoner Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to freeing those imprisoned on cannabis convictions, also convincingly argued that Cox’s life sentence was issued under outdated mandatory minimums for growing cannabis, which is now legal in many states.