A resigned Andre Brown recounts sustaining a traumatic mind harm by the hands of corrections officers earlier than abruptly breaking off into unfiltered elation. “I … simply obtained some nice information!” he stated over the cellphone, making each syllable rely. Within the background, a girl yells “Oh, my God” in aid and his kids scream in pleasure. Brown, 48, simply discovered he is not going to return to jail tomorrow.
“All of us thanks, God, thanks a lot!”
The Bronx District Lawyer’s Workplace granted Brown a 30-day keep as he awaits a response from Gov. Kathy Hochul after his attorneys, Oscar Michelen and Jeffrey Deskovic, filed an emergency clemency petition. He’ll return to court docket in April.
Moments earlier than, Brown deliberate on turning himself in at 10 a.m. sharp on Thursday, Mar. 13, for a conviction he already served 20 years and maintains his innocence for. “I’m in my closing hours of being a father and a husband,” he stated earlier within the interview. “I’m in my closing hours of being a brother, uncle, a nephew, a cousin … of being a free man [and] I’m on the verge of going again to jail for a criminal offense that I didn’t commit.”
A profitable declare of ineffective help freed him in late 2022 from two consecutive 20-year sentences for tried homicide: His earlier lawyer did not introduce proof of a bodily harm, which can have exonerated him. Brown was convicted for taking pictures two males on Jan. 15, 1999, however he was recovering from being shot himself and walked with a limp on the time when witnesses stated the masked suspect was sprinting.
“In line with the court docket, proof of defendant’s harm would have established that defendant was incapable of working the space and within the method testified to by the victims and the eyewitness,” wrote Choose David L Lewis in his 2022 choice. “With regard to defendant’s declare of precise innocence, the court docket discovered that defendant had failed to satisfy his burden to current clear and convincing proof in assist of his declare.”
However Brown will not be out of the woods but. He’ll nonetheless return to jail subsequent month if Hochul doesn’t approve his emergency clemency petition as a result of he was by no means totally exonerated and was solely launched on his personal recognizance for the overturned conviction. Lewis denied Brown’s innocence declare stemming from newly found proof, opening the door for the courts to reinstate the conviction this previous Christmas eve.
This information coincides with a disaster in New York state prisons, together with a number of employees being charged with allegedly beating incarcerated particular person Robert Brooks to loss of life and corrections officers putting illegally to weaken the HALT legal guidelines banning solitary confinement over the previous few months.
Hochul can grant Brown clemency, which might forestall him from returning to jail with out essentially vacating his conviction by means of a full pardon. A spokesperson for the governor stated the workplace doesn’t touch upon pending petitions.
Nonetheless, simply one other month along with his household means the world to Brown. It’s powerful to think about the mild-mannered Brown because the “loudest disruptor” throughout his son’s basketball video games, however referees have threatened him with a technical foul for yelling at them so onerous. He gushes over the previous two years along with his son and daughter, from watching them get up to packing their snacks for college.
“I simply wished to be a father,” stated Brown. “I simply wished to be a good friend to my spouse and maintain her hand strolling down the road, one thing that she had longed for the 14 years we’ve been married, coming into our fifteenth 12 months this 12 months in November … being a mum or dad is so humbling to me as a result of I may have by no means raised my son or my daughter from a (jail) go to room flooring.”
Brown refuses to discuss with his previous two years as “reentry” since he first turned himself in for the conviction barely into his maturity. “It will be thought of a ‘new entry’ as a result of I’ve lived in jail extra time than I’ve lived on the street,” he stated. “I went to jail once I was 21 years outdated, I had my twenty second birthday on the within.”
Rising up within the Bronx, Brown spent his childhood taking good care of his siblings and cousin after his dad and mom have been divorced and his mother was incarcerated. As a teen breadwinner, he labored at a White Plains retail retailer till the seasonal interval ended. Brown turned to promoting crack for round a 12 months, in response to his clemency petition.
Dealing led to Brown being shot within the leg whereas strolling by means of the Bronx. In line with the petition, he gave up the life after the incident to enroll at Borough of Manhattan Neighborhood Faculty a 12 months earlier than he was arrested.
Over these previous two years, Brown helped at-risk youth as a reputable messenger and established a GED program and chess membership at a neighborhood New Rochelle nonprofit. The work is an extension of the self-development he started in jail, starting from parenting and psychological well being lessons to facilitating HIV/AIDS training and prevention workshops.
Proponents of Brown embrace the Innocence Challenge, whose director of particular litigation, Vanessa Potkin, advocated for him in a letter to Hochul included within the clemency petition.
“Having labored with a whole bunch of individuals returning house after a long time of incarceration, we’re impressed with Mr. Brown and what he has achieved over the previous two years,” wrote Potkin. “He has no trace [of] bitterness and is a optimistic, enthusiastic, useful, sort individual. He has labored to enhance the lives of individuals round him — by means of counseling at-risk youngsters — and has continued on his personal path of self-improvement by means of enrolling in school programs. Mr. Brown is phenomenal.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public security for the Amsterdam Information. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps preserve him writing tales like this one; please contemplate making a tax-deductible reward of any quantity at present by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
Creator’s Observe: A correction was issued for the decide’s identify, which is David L. Lewis.
