![]() Of the estimated 3% of cases that went to trial in 2018, according to the Pew Research Center, prosecutors won about 83% of the time. ![]() So far, the project has reduced sentences by a collective 1,025 years.įEDERAL PROSECUTORS CAN CLAIM an almost 100% conviction rate. Gleeson suggested a pro bono effort that would ask other federal prosecutors, respectfully, if they would also agree to walk back some of their convictions.įrom that seemingly quixotic proposal, the Holloway Project was born - a campaign that, as of this writing, has helped free 30 prisoners who would have otherwise been warehoused for the rest of their lives and largely forgotten by society. Attorney Loretta Lynch to agree to dismiss two convictions of a man he sentenced, Francois Holloway. The men had written to Gleeson for help after he persuaded then-U.S. The letters of desperate men serving stacked 924(c) sentences stared up at him. Having left the bench just a few months earlier, incoming partner Gleeson had an idea. In the summer of 2016, the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, headquartered in New York City, called a meeting to discuss what it could do to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system. They use it to get people to plead guilty.” “I was a prosecutor once I know how they think,” Gleeson said. That is, if prosecutors brought all the potential firearm charges, and then refused to dismiss them because the defendant had exercised his right to trial by jury. Until the First Step Act was passed in December 2018, multiple 924(c) convictions required the imposition of mandatory consecutive 25-year sentences on each “second or successive” conviction.Įven for a young person, stacked 924(c) convictions could quickly result in a de facto life sentence. The law mandates lengthy prison terms for defendants convicted of using or possessing a firearm in connection with crimes involving violence or drug trafficking. Code, Section 924(c) - and the so-called “stacked” sentences the code produced. He notably was lead counsel in the successful 1992 prosecution of crime boss John Gotti on racketeering charges and five murders.īut as a judge at least, Gleeson didn’t always agree with how prosecutors wielded their power under Title 18 of the U.S. Over time, he was chief of appeals, chief of special prosecutions, chief of organized crime and chief of the Criminal Division. attorney in the Eastern District of New York. Gleeson served from 1985-1994 as an assistant U.S. As David Patton, attorney-in-chief of the Federal Defenders in Brooklyn and Manhattan, put it in 2016 for a Politico article about Gleeson’s retirement from the bench, he “can’t be accused of just being a fuzzy-headed liberal.” ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |