After serving a six-month prison sentence for cocaine possession, Marion Barry sought re-election for the office of mayor of Washington, D.C. Barry was assisted in this endeavor by the 75-member Coalition of Ex-Offenders, a group of felons who went door to door campaigning for him. According to organizer Rhozier "Roach" Brown, a convicted murderer, drug dealer, and thief, the Coalition members were especially helpful because they went into the toughest neighborhoods to register the District's substantial criminal population, most of whom were unaware of a 1976 law that gave them voting rights.

Following Mayor Barry's successful re-election campaign, a federal judge transferred parole supervision of Mr. Brown from the D.C. parole board to a federal board. This was because Mr. Brown, who was now serving as an assistant to the mayor, had inexplicably been released early by the D.C. board from his prison sentence and, due to a "clerical error," freed of his obligation to repay $45,000 to an orphanage he was convicted of swindling.

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