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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Commentary-No-good-is-served-by-David-Gilbert-s-14894188.php">https://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Commentary-No-good-is-served-by-David-Gilbert-s-14894188.php</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">No good is served by David Gilbert's
continued incarceration</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By Cynthia Grant Bowman -
December 9, 2019<br>
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<p>Chesa Boudin was recently elected district attorney in
San Francisco. His promise of a new approach to criminal
justice grounded in fairness appealed to voters more
than his opponents' law-and-order model, which has
failed citizens throughout the country. When he received
the news, Boudin was visiting his father in an upstate
New York prison.</p>
<p>His father, David Gilbert, has been imprisoned for 38
years; he is 75 years old. The fact that he is still
behind bars is a disgrace to the criminal justice system
in New York.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>When Gilbert was incarcerated, his son Chesa Boudin was
an infant. While in prison, Gilbert managed, with the
help of New York's enlightened system of trailer visits
with immediate family, to help parent Boudin. He
imparted to his son both his love for the child and his
social justice values, which include the preciousness of
life and the errors in his own earlier political vision.
Boudin's devotion to public service is no doubt
influenced by what he learned from his father.</p>
<p>While remaining free of disciplinary violations for 38
years, Gilbert also co-founded a trailblazing program of
AIDS education in prison, tutored countless other
prisoners, and facilitated anti-violence programs.</p>
<p>Like so many other aging prisoners in the New York
system, his health is declining. It makes little sense
to continue to imprison older people who have served
lengthy terms, pose no threat to the public, acknowledge
and accept responsibility for the harms they caused, and
require costly medical care for which the state must
pay.</p>
<p>We are law professors who have spent time visiting
Gilbert in prison — one of us five or six times a year
over the past five years. Many other names could be
added to ours as well. Everyone who meets Gilbert is
impressed by his deep thoughtfulness, compassion and
profound remorse for his role in the tragic deaths of
three people — and for the pain their families have
suffered. He listens to visitors intently and helps them
think through their problems, whether personal,
political or intellectual. One such visitor describes
him in a letter as "a kind and peace-loving person,
concerned about the well-being of those around him,
interested in my own personal and professional
responsibilities, and deeply remorseful for his
participation in the Brinks Robbery."</p>
<p>Gilbert has paid a heavy price for his crime. We
believe that it is past time for him to be released from
prison. We are absolutely certain that granting him
clemency would present no danger to society. Rather, he
would contribute his many talents to his family, friends
and the community at large, and his release would send a
message of hope to the many elders serving lengthy
sentences across New York.</p>
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<h2><span>More</span> Information</h2>
<p><i>Cynthia Grant Bowman is the Dorothea S.
Clarke Professor of Law at Cornell Law
School. Also contributing to this were
Cornell law professors Aziz Rana and Beth
Lyon. </i></p>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
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San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
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