Andre Brown spent last Christmas Eve blindsided by an appellate court reinstating his previously overturned attempted murder conviction and potentially resuming the second half of a 40-year prison sentence. After a year of uncertainty, the Bronx father can now celebrate this year’s holiday season — on Dec. 1, a judge ruled to resentence him to time served, closing the door for any future reimprisonment.
“This year is going to be a joyful year of celebration,” said Brown, 48, in a phone interview with the AmNews. “It’s going to be one that we remember for a lifetime: where despair that had withered away and joy and great smiles and laughter [have] reentered into our home. And we are so looking forward to next year, when we’re able to really look behind and see what we really accomplished, because we’re taking this very slow on a daily basis.”
The decision does not exonerate Brown, who maintains his innocence. He remains guilty on paper for the attempted murder conviction stemming from a 1999 shooting. The incident left one teenager paralyzed and another with lifelong medical complications, “including a bullet that remained lodged under the upper part of his left arm,” before dying prematurely this past March at age 44.
Back in 2022, a judge freed Brown from prison after serving 23 years due to an ineffective assistance claim. His previous attorney did not employ potentially game-changing medical evidence of Brown’s own gunshot wound in the leg, which would challenge whether he could run the way the perpetrator did from witness testimony.
But prosecutors from the Bronx District Attorney’s Office successfully pushed to reinstate the conviction last winter. They argued the previous lawyer’s decision not to introduce his limp was strategic, not sloppy, to protect his client from highlighting his past drug dealing, which led to his injury. Brown paints a different story, saying the incident served as a wakeup call for him to turn his life around.
“I started off as a hustler, and then I changed my mindset and understood because I had gotten a severe life-threatening injury that could have killed me,” said Brown. “I got shot inside of my leg, and then I immediately changed my mind and said I could never be a street person again, and I started going to college. So it starts with a mindset, and that mindset transmuted with me into the [carceral] system, and I continued to develop and hone those skills and gather more educational tools to saturate myself.”
He planned on surrendering himself this past spring to possibly serve out the roughly 17 years remaining on his sentence. At the time, New York state prisons faced a crisis following the murder of Robert Brooks and a statewide corrections officer strike. He received a stay just a day before he planned on turning himself in, but remained in limbo until this month.
Along with his innocence claim, Brown drew support thanks to his reputation as a model returning citizen. His proponents questioned what purpose nearly another two decades in prison would serve for a man who helps at-risk youth and has established a GED program since coming home. Additionally, they opposed ripping Brown away from his wife Tameka, son AJ, and his stepdaughter Trinity.
Throughout the year, organizations ranging from the Innocence Project to the NAACP New York State Conference beckoned Gov. Kathy Hochul to grant him clemency to prevent reimprisonment. She did not sign off.
In October, a judge agreed to resentencing. The Bronx District Attorney’s Office did not oppose despite standing by the conviction. However, the judge’s decision still hung in the balance. Brown could technically face the same sentence or even a longer one. Ultimately, those anxieties were for nought. The judge resentenced Brown to two concurrent 20-year sentences, halving his original two consecutive sentences totaling 40 years. His 23 years in prison counted as complete time-served.
“Finally, the D.A agreed with our position, which was that the 23 years that Andre had served were a sufficient punishment for the crime,” said Brown’s lead counsel Oscar Michelen. “The sentence Andre would receive if the crime occurred in 2025 would never be 40 years without parole. We now know those draconian [and] harsh sentences don’t reduce recidivism [and] support anything that society is interested in.”
“And it would serve no purpose societally for Andre to go back to prison. He had done all the rehabilitation he could have possibly done: he had taken classes, certificates, etc.”
Michelen and Brown’s other lawyer Jeffrey Deskovic boasts a decorated resume for successfully fighting wrongful convictions and say they will continue working on proving his innocence after taking his case pro-bono years ago. Regardless of guilt, there’s an extremely tight window for what sentences can be reviewed and shortened. “I’m blessed, heavily, highly favored, because what Oscar Michelin [and] Jeffrey Deskovich pulled off,” said Brown. “It is 1%. I’m the 1% percentile.” But does he need to be?
In New York, judges can only resentence cases if the original punishment was illegal or unlawful, and leaves little recourse for most to face the overly harsh sentences unheard of in other “industrialized” nations outside the United States. Ironically, Brown would not have had the same avenue if he had adequate legal representation. There is no “interest of justice” provision, which allows judges to use their discretion to ensure fair outcomes.
The direct product is mass incarceration, with Black and Brown men bearing the brunt of these sentencing practices. CUNY Law Prof. Steve Zeidman says Brown’s case exemplifies the national Second Look movement to open the door for reviewing extensive sentences as a criminal justice reform.
“A case like Andre Brown’s shows twenty years [is] enough punishment,” said Zeidman. “It’s especially enough punishment if someone has done everything they can [while] inside, in Andre’s case, the three years he was out, to show that they are a different person, not only they’re not a threat to public safety, but they have so much to offer their family and their community on the outside.”
A Second Look Act bill currently exists here in New York. If passed into law, the legislation would allow incarcerated individuals serving lengthy sentences to apply for a sentence reduction under an “interest of justice” provision. Several notable supporters include Chief Judge Rowan Wilson and mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a current co-sponsor for the Assembly’s version of the bill. But there remains work to do in the state legislature.
“Incarcerated New Yorkers need real pathways for rejoining their families, repairing harm, healing, and contributing to society –– and the Second Look Act would provide precisely such opportunities,” said State Senate lead sponsor Julia Salazar in a statement. “The bill is a counterweight to overly harsh sentences, giving incarcerated New Yorkers hope for release, while granting judges discretion to determine readiness for reentry.”
Lead Assembly sponsor Latrice Walker is a staunch proponent of Brown and showed up for his resentencing. Over a written statement, the Brooklyn-based lawmaker hoped people would take time this holiday season to think about the more than 32,000 people in New York state prisons and believed it was time “for a second look.” She also recounted the efforts working behind the scenes to draft letters of support and meet with key officials on behalf of Brown.
“This is the perfect Christmas gift for him, for his wife and their kids,” said Walker. “It is a victory for justice, although a delayed victory. Mr. Brown’s case underscores how important it is for us to fight for criminal justice reform in New York State. I have been in touch with the Governor’s office about his clemency application, as he fights to prove his innocence once and for all.”
“We have to keep up the fight until there are no more Andre Browns in our prison system.”
While excessive sentencing seems tied to the Crime Bill-era of decades past, Zeidman believes the problem persists. He still regularly sees young Black and Brown people in court facing “astronomical” sentences. “It’s still happening,” said Zeidman. “All the Second Look Act does is say you’re not destined to perish in prison.”
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