"They hurt somebody maybe very seriously in the past, but they have come to be a very different person. And now we are spending a lot of money to keep them in prison. That's stupid. It's a very hard thing, I think, given the current sentencing framework, to get judges at the moment of sentencing, to think 'oh I should think about this fact that there isn't a re-sentencing available.'"
"You can find out who those people are. And when those judges come up to be elected, don't vote for them and get other people not to vote for them. That's something that you can do for me."
"He also called it 'very distressing' that a judge recently called a defendant an 'animal' who 'should be locked up' for the rest of his life, before sentencing him."
New York Chief Judge Rowan Wilson sparked controversy by advocating for more lenient sentencing practices and calling on voters to remove judges who impose lengthy prison sentences. Speaking at a CUNY School of Law panel discussion about the Second Look Act, Wilson criticized the current sentencing framework and suggested judges should consider that convicted individuals may have reformed. He characterized lengthy incarceration as wasteful and expressed distress over harsh judicial language toward defendants. Wilson explicitly encouraged attendees to identify and vote against judges who impose severe sentences. State Republicans filed an ethics complaint, alleging Wilson violated professional conduct rules through these comments that appeared to pressure judges toward leniency and politicize judicial elections.
Read at New York Post
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