Kalief Browder never pleaded guilty and was never convicted. Browder maintained his innocence and requested a trial, but was only offered plea deals while the trial was repeatedly delayed. Near the end of his time in jail, the judge offered to sentence him to time served if he entered a guilty plea, and warned him he could face 15 years in prison if he was convicted. But Browder still refused to accept the deal, and was only released when the case was dismissed. During this time, Browder spent nearly 800 days in solitary confinement, a juvenile imprisonment practice that the New York Department of Corrections has now banned. Browder was walking home with friends from a party in the Bronx, on May 15, 2010. Police stopped him based on a tip that he had robbed someone weeks earlier. He was searched, they found nothing on him. Nothing. KALIEF BROWDER: No weapon, no money, anything he said that I allegedly robbed him for. So the guy actually changed up his story and said that I actually tried to rob him. But then another police officer came, and they said that I robbed him two weeks prior. And then they said, We’re going to take you to the precinct, and most likely we’re going to let you go home. But then, I never went home. Instead of sitting in a holding cell for a couple of hours while this terrible misunderstanding got sorted out, Browder ended up being sent to the adolescent jail on Rikers Island–for 33 months.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 19:41:15 +0000
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