![]() Its recidivism rate is lower than that in the rest of the city, and it saves up to $15 million a year in incarceration costs, according to a recent study.īut what is routine in Red Hook demands special agility elsewhere. It accepts criminal cases from three police precincts and, under a single roof, manages to steer people into drug treatment, alternative schools, and other places besides jail. In Brooklyn, the Red Hook Community Court has taken drastically different approaches and has shown that some problems are better solved by not locking people up. Williams recalled.Ī minimum of a year in jail is the formula applied by New York State as a hedge against the history of misery associated with guns when it turned out that the gun was not working, and that its possession was therefore not a felony but a misdemeanor, the Manhattan district attorney’s office stuck by its demand for a year in jail. “The officer said if I was going to take it there, I should never have had it in my waistband,” Ms. She explained that she had thought it might be worth a few dollars by turning it in at a police station house. “I thought it would be cool if we kept it, and that night - I don’t know why - I decided to take it outside,” she said. One afternoon in December 2010, she said, she and some friends found the gun near a trash can on 119th Street. “I was hanging out in the projects, partying, running around, doing negative things,” Ms. After attending Bayard Rustin High School for a few years, she effectively dropped out. She grew up in the Jefferson Houses projects in East Harlem, raised by her mother and stepfather, living with “five other siblings - one brother, one sister, two nephews, one niece,” she said. Williams had a dreadful record in school - cutting classes, getting suspended, a fib-a-day for her parents - but none whatsoever of violence, or, for that matter, any criminality. Orlins apparently is the only public defender in New York to have appeared twice on the reality TV show “Survivor.”)Īs a teenager, Ms. Orlins, a graduate of private schools in Washington, is dedicated to her work, but that is not a rarity in the Legal Aid Society or in the offices of New York City’s district attorneys. Williams’s case is much out of the ordinary, except that enough people made the effort to help her way to redemption. She has a wonderful aunt and grandmother and girlfriend who wanted to see her succeed.”įor all that, nothing about Ms. “I felt that if she could escape from that, she could transform her life. “She hadn’t been through the system,” said Eliza Orlins, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society who represented her. And cheering her on will be school advisers who helped her get a driver’s license and have her poised to start a training program with U.P.S. Among the speakers on the commencement program are the lawyer who decided that she was worth another chance and the judge who decided to give it to her. Williams, now 20, will take the day off from her job at a CVS drugstore and turn up for graduation from Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School. ![]() “Reality didn’t hit me until I was in Rikers Island, and thought, ‘Oh my God, this is not my life,’ ” Ms. Sitting in a detention cell in December 2010 at age 17, Jessica Williams of East Harlem realized she had been caught cold and was about to be cooked: a year in jail on a Class D felony, and then lifetime membership in the Rikers Island Alumni Association. She had not been to school in at least six months. 22-caliber pistol was in her waistband, not only unlicensed but defaced, its serial number scratched or sanded off. She continues to use her platform to rage against injustice.The. She brought to the national stage issues of ending money bail, decriminalizing sex work, and more. Last year, Orlins ran for Manhattan District Attorney on a progressive, decarceral platform designed to make real, systemic change to our current cruel, unjust criminal legal system. In 2018, she appeared on The Amazing Race. Orlins also appeared in 2004 and again in 2008 as a contestant on the CBS reality television show, Survivor. She has litigated suppression hearings, as well as bench and jury trials in New York State Supreme Court and New York State Criminal Court. For 13 years, she has dedicated herself to the zealous defense of some of society's most vulnerable individuals. Save the date for this exciting event and subsequent reception.Įliza Orlins is a public defender at the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan. We are thrilled to welcome Eliza Orlins to speak to students and sit down with Dean Dan Filler for a lively Q&A conversation. ![]()
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