By Johanna S. Zapp, Esq.
An amazing and rare thing happened in a courtroom in the Eastern District of New York this past week. A defendant who had originally been sentenced to a mandatory 57 years was resentenced (after serving twenty years) to time served. Judge John Gleeson, a District Court Judge in the Eastern District of New York, made every effort possible to figure out a way to get Mr. Holloway’s sentence changed. He himself made two separate requests to the US Attorney of the Eastern District of New York to vacate some of the charges so that the mandatory sentencing scheme (totaling 57 years) would not apply. He finally convinced the United States Attorney that it was the right and just thing to do.
You all should know that unfortunately, this is a very unique and rare occurrence. It was a truly extraordinary act done by an extraordinary judge whose sense of fairness is incomparable.
Below is an edited version of the New York Times article describing what Judge Gleeson did:
At Behest of Judge, U.S.
Shortens Man’s 57-Year
Mandatory Sentence
By Monique O. Madan, July 29, 2014
A Queens man who had been serving a 57-year mandatory federal prison sentence was resentenced on Tuesday to time served, capping a judge’s extraordinary efforts to undo the damage from what he believed was a grossly excessive sentence.
The resentencing hearing came to be only after the judge, John Gleeson, persuaded Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, to vacate two of the three convictions against Francois Holloway, who had been prosecuted on carjacking and other charges.
Judge Gleeson, who presided over the hearing on Tuesday, did not argue that Mr. Holloway, 57, was innocent; his petition was based on what he called the unfairness of Mr. Holloway’s mandatory sentence, which was calculated using a requirement known as “stacking.” The provision, which some judges and lawyers argue is intended more as a recidivism measure, was applied to Mr. Holloway even though his crimes were committed hours apart.
Mr. Holloway was charged in 1995 with three counts of carjacking and using a gun during a violent crime (even though it was an accomplice, not Mr. Holloway, who carried the gun), along with participating in a chop shop.
Prosecutors offered him an 11-year plea deal that he turned down after his lawyer persuaded him that he would be acquitted at trial. Mr. Holloway lost.
For the first conviction on the gun count, the law required Mr. Holloway to receive five years. But for the second and third convictions, the law required 20 years for each one, served consecutively, in accordance with the stacking requirement.
Since prosecutors agreed last week to vacate two of the three convictions, the stacking provision no longer applied to Mr. Holloway.
“A prosecutor who says nothing can be done about an unjust sentence because all appeals and collateral challenges have been exhausted is actually choosing to do nothing about the unjust sentence,” Judge Gleeson wrote in a memorandum about Ms. Lynch’s decision released on Monday. “Some will make a different choice, as Ms. Lynch did here.”
All of Mr. Holloway’s co-defendants pleaded guilty and served no more than six years.
Mr. Holloway, who was to have remained in prison until 2045, was given a sentence in 1996 that was more than twice the average sentence in the district for murder that year.
“Second looks in the federal criminal justice system just don’t happen — ever,” said Mr. Holloway’s attorney. “Except when they do.”
Mr. Holloway, in court on Tuesday, waved at the three relatives who attended the hearing, and then smiled.
“Do you know how many funerals he missed? Seven,” his aunt, Sedatrius Hill, 63, said. “How many births he wasn’t there for? So many. He missed 20 years of his life.”
The last word went to Judge Gleeson, who spoke directly to Mr. Holloway.
“It says something about you that you are thanking me and the U.S. attorney’s office,” he said. “But it’s important that you know that this is not an act of grace. It’s an effort to do what we’re here to do: be fair and exercise justice. You have been given back 30 years of your life. All I have to say is, make it count.”