David Gilbert (activist) – Wikipedia
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2021-08-23 Cuomo commutes sentence of radical who took part in ’81 robbery
David Gilbert, imprisoned for four decades, can take case to parole board
ALBANY — Just hours before leaving office, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo granted clemency to five men, including the commutation of the 75-years-to-life sentence of David Gilbert, a former member of the radical Weather Underground who in 1981 took part in the robbery of a Brink’s armored truck in Rockland County that left two Nyack police officers and a security guard dead.
Cuomo’s action will allow Gilbert to make his case to the parole board. The 76-year-old has been incarcerated for four decades after being convicted of felony murder and robbery. He is currently confined at Shawangunk Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Ulster County, 80 miles south of Albany.
David Zeidman, a CUNY Law School professor who began representing Gilbert in 2019, said Monday evening that his client is one of the oldest and longest-serving among the state’s roughly 38,000 inmates. He said that Gilbert has expressed deep remorse for his role in the crime, and while behind bars has taken part in efforts such as the creation of an AIDS education program that became a statewide model as the epidemic was raging in the 1980s and ’90s.
Zeidman, who directs the law school’s Criminal Defense Clinic, said that beyond the impact on Gilbert personally, Cuomo’s action sends a message to incarcerated people who fear they have no chance for release. “When a governor issues clemency, it echoes, it reverberates, it spreads hope,” he said.
Gilbert’s son, Chesa Boudin, was elected district attorney for San Francisco in 2019. His mother, Kathy Boudin, was also incarcerated for decades for her part in the heist, and received parole in 2003.
The Times Union’s Paul Grondahl wrote in November about the efforts of Chesa Boudin and Green Island’s Jeff Jones, a family friend and former ’60s radical turned environmental advocate, to press Cuomo to release Gilbert from prison — especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As someone who has known David since 1966, I’m just ecstatic,” Jones said Monday evening. ” … He’s a guy who deserves to be out of prison.”
Gilbert and Kathy Boudin were in a transfer truck waiting for the getaway car carrying the robbers and the $1.6 million they had stolen from the Brink’s truck at the Nanuet Mall. Boudin received a sentence of 25 years to life after hiring a lawyer, pleading guilty and accepting a plea deal; Gilbert defended himself and went to trial.
“My father was not present in the courtroom for much of the trial and nobody advocated for him, which is why it is a bad idea to represent yourself,” Chesa Boudin told Grondahl. “My mother and father did the exact same thing and had identical culpability in the crime. My mother served 22 years in prison and was paroled 17 years ago, while my father is still in prison. It’s an example of criminal justice imbalance.”
Boudin noted that his father is perhaps the only person his age who has served as many years in state prison who was unarmed during the commission of the crime. Another Brink’s robbery co-defendant, Weather Underground member Judith Clark, who drove the getaway car, was granted parole in 2019 after Cuomo commuted her 75-years-to-life sentence in 2016. Prosecutors and law enforcement bitterly opposed her parole and called it an insult to the victims’ family members. continued
2020-11-24 Grondahl: DA seeks clemency for father, ’60s radical David Gilbert
Now, Jones, 73, of Green Island, an environmental consultant, is joining forces with Boudin and international religious leaders including the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to seek mercy from the governor. The coalition is urging Gov. Andrew Cuomo to grant clemency to Boudin’s father, David Gilbert, because his age elevates the risk he faces from COVID-19.
Gilbert is 76 years old and has been incarcerated for 39 years. He is serving a 75-years-to-life sentence for felony murder and robbery. Gilbert is confined at Shawangunk Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Ulster County, 80 miles south of Albany. He is one of the oldest and longest-serving inmates among the state’s roughly 38,000 inmates. Gilbert is not eligible for parole until 2056, when he would be 112 years old. continued
2019-12-23 No good is served by David Gilbert’s continued incarceration
This undated photo shows Chesa Boudin, second from left, fiancee Valerie Block, left, and his parents, David Gilbert and Katherine Boudin, at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York, where Gilbert remains confined. Chesa Boudin was elected San Francisco district attorney in the Nov. 5, 2019, election. He and Block are currently on their honeymoon. His parents were sent to prison for the 1981 Brinks armored car robbery murders in Nyack, New York. Katherine Boudin was paroled in 2003. – Photo: Chesa Boudin
Gilbert was sentenced to 75 years to life under New York’s felony murder law, which holds anyone involved in a felony responsible for any death that results from it, even though they did not kill anyone, fire any shots, possess a weapon, or have any intention, or even expectation, that anyone would be killed. Gilbert and other former members of the Weather Underground served as getaway drivers for a botched robbery by the Black Liberation Army, a group formed in the wake of the murders of numerous Black activists, such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Mark Clark and Fred Hampton. A Brink’s armored car guard and two Nyack police officers were killed. Gilbert was unarmed and not involved in the shooting.
The felony murder doctrine is unique to the United States. It rips apart the traditional connection to responsibility and intent in our theories of criminal punishment. England abolished felony murder in 1957; Ireland and India have abolished it as well. Felony murder was declared unconstitutional by the courts in Canada in 1990, and several U.S. states have moved to abolish the doctrine, either by legislation or in judicial holdings. When one tells foreign legal scholars about felony murder, they are shocked. Continued
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