Getaway driver in brink's heist merits new parole hearing, judge rules

The judge, John J. Kelley of state Supreme Court in Manhattan, said the three-member board had focused too heavily on the severity of the crime and had given too little weight to Clark’s long record of good works in prison as well as to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s decision in December 2016 to reduce her sentence.

The judge ordered that a new parole hearing be held within 60 days.

“Ms. Clark has undergone a remarkable transformation over the three decades during which she has been incarcerated,” Kelley wrote in a decision made public Friday. “Ms. Clark has taken responsibility for her actions, expressed remorse and tried to improve the lives of her fellow prisoners, as well as many others.”

Clark, 68, drove a getaway car during the attempted robbery of a Brink’s armored car in Rockland County in 1981. The heist was part of a scheme by the May 19th Communist movement and a revolutionary black group to steal $1.6 million for financing a guerrilla uprising. Two police officers and a security guard were shot and killed during the robbery.

Clark represented herself at trial, expressing no remorse and telling the jury that revolutionary violence was a “liberating force.” The sentencing judge said she was beyond rehabilitation and sentenced her to 75 years to life.

Clark has evolved over 37 years to become a model prisoner, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees, leading educational programs for inmates, and starting programs to fight AIDS and improve prenatal care. Her efforts to obtain clemency gained wide attention, particularly as other participants in the Brink’s robbery were released.

Citing her “exceptional strides in self-development,” Cuomo commuted her sentence in late 2016, cutting the minimum time to 35 years and making her eligible for parole.

Still, when she came up for parole a year ago, law enforcement groups, conservative judges and Republican politicians fought her release, deluging the board with letters.

The three-member board voted unanimously to keep her in prison, determining that her release was “incompatible with the welfare of society.” “You are still a symbol of a terroristic crime,” the board said in a statement.

Kelley, however, ruled that the board had failed to follow state law and court precedents. Courts have held that parole decisions should not be based solely on the severity of the crime and the defendant’s conduct at trial, but must give more weight to whether the inmate has been rehabilitated and no longer poses a risk to society.

The law’s intent, he wrote, “is to base parole board determinations on a forward-looking paradigm, rather than a backward-looking approach.”

The parole board did not immediately respond to the ruling. “The board has received the decision and is reviewing it,” Patrick J. Bailey, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Getaway driver in brink's heist merits new parole hearing, judge rules

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