Except that was not the sentence Judge Gleeson imposed, a life of shame and unemployment, a social pariah.īuried in 18 U.S.C. She might have done her time, but that’s just where the punishment starts these days. The fact is that Judge Gleeson sought to create something that was needed and didn’t exist, to counter the extension of his sentence into a world that it never belonged, that he never intended it to belong.īut to society, that’s not good enough. While I can’t help but picture the certificate issued by Judge Gleeson as drawn in crayon, or the sort of thing some certificate-maker app on the internets can create for third-graders who ate their spinach, that’s just my weird view of the system. While he believed the original punishment he gave Jane Doe was fair, Judge Gleeson wrote, “I had no intention to sentence her to the unending hardship she has endured in the job market.” No such certificate exists under federal law, so the judge designed one himself and attached it to his opinion. Finding that this one conviction continued to scare off employers and make it impossible for the woman, identified in court records only as Jane Doe, to get hired as a nurse, Judge Gleeson gave her what amounted to a voucher of good character - he called it a “federal certificate of rehabilitation.”
Many judges might leave it at that, but in an extraordinary 31-page opinion released on March 7, Judge Gleeson stepped back into the case. But regardless, her kids had to live without their mother for 15 months because that’s the sentence Judge Gleeson imposed. Some will think she deserved such a lengthy sentence for her small role in the crime, despite her circumstances of living in poverty, having children to feed, and getting nothing for it.
In case you’re wondering, 15 months is a long time, but there were guidelines back then, and that’s what the guidelines called for. After a jury found her guilty, Judge Gleeson sentenced the woman to 15 months in prison.
#Gleeson jydge trial
In 2003, John Gleeson, a federal district judge in Brooklyn, presided over the trial of a woman charged for her role in faking a car accident for the insurance payments. And, as Jesse Wegman notes, he has now left the courthouse. As Assistant United States Attorneys went, he was fine.īut John Gleeson, the former prosecutor, turned out to be a remarkable United States District Court judge. It’s hard to imagine, 30 years ago, that a criminal defense lawyer would be offering an homage to John Gleeson.
0 kommentar(er)
