10 Questions. Preserving Potential
| Author | Jenny B. Davis |
| Pages | 14-16 |
Under Florida’s harsh felony mur-
der law, Holle was sentenced to life in
prison for a murder committed by his
friends while he was home sleeping.
In 2015, then-Florida Gov. Rick
Scott (now a U.S. senator) commuted
Holle’s sentence.
“I believe that the purpose of com-
mutations is to undo such obviously
inequitable results,” Scott said at the
time. “Because Ryan Holle’s responsibil-
ity for [the victim’s] death is clearly less
than [his co-defendants’], I believe his
sentence should likewise be less.”
When I read about Holle’s commuta-
tion in the prison law library, I realized
my case was very similar: I, too, had
received life without parole for a crime
that happened while I was asleep in bed.
After watching the gridlock over
criminal justice reform in Tallahassee
for years, I decided to take proactive
steps to try to reform the state’s felony
murder law.
In addition to teaching GED classes
for other inmates and training service
dogs for disabled veterans in a prison
VetDog program, I am also a para-
legal; so I decided to write a reform
bill myself.
I had been following the progress as
other states changed or eliminated their
felony murder laws, but it seemed that
reform bills being introduced were too
ambitious for Florida’s conservative leg-
islature. So I attempted to write a more
conservative bill that merely amends
the sentencing portion of the felony
murder statute without deleting any of
its provisions.
Dialing it in
I wrote the rst draft from my cell
while the prison was on COVID-19
lockdown. My lawyers, Mark O’Mara
and Randy Lambert of the O’Mara
Law Group in Orlando, Florida, helped
me edit the nal draft. Since Holle’s
commutation was the inspiration for the
bill, I asked them to get his approval to
title the bill the Ryan Holle Reform Act,
and he agreed.
This very focused amendment to
Florida’s murder statute simply caps
the amount of time in prison someone
convicted can receive at 15 years, as
long as the person was not the actual
killer or was not a major participant
who helped kill someone. As simple
as it sounds, this 17-page bill faces
massive headwinds from prosecutorial
and law enforcement groups who have
resisted any efforts to modify the felony
murder rule.
I was lucky enough to meet the great
people at the criminal justice reform
group We H.E.A.R.T. Florida who have
worked tirelessly for years to bring
about a more “just” justice system. We
have recently found some support in the
Florida legislature and are hoping the
bill gains momentum.
Prisons are overcrowded, and man-
datory minimum sentences assure that
inmates continue getting warehoused
for ridiculous amounts of time. The
Florida prison system, like many others
nationwide, is becoming a bottomless
scal pit with no end in sight. Bills like
this one can help alleviate some of the
pressure. Fixing broken laws is a bipar-
tisan issue that everyone should be able
to get behind.
Public awareness and support are
key to getting the Ryan Holle Reform
Act passed. You can nd out more
about the bill at WeHeartFlorida.org
and our efforts to make this a reality in
Florida. Q
Douglas Gilding is currently on an
interstate transfer to Maine State Prison .
To contact him, send an email message
to RyanHolleReformAct@gmail.com.
This column re ects the opinions of the
author and not necessarily the views of
the ABA Journal—or the American Bar
Association.
10 QUESTIONS
Preserving
Potential
Innovative nonprofit organization
supports public defenders
and their clients
BY JENNY B. DAVIS
A
low-income defendant. An
overworked public defender.
An underresourced legal
system and a cash-strapped
local government.
Most people wouldn’t look at this
scenario and immediately think “op-
portunity,” but that’s what sets New
York City lawyer Emily Galvin-
Almanza apart—and explains her
innovative approach to legal reform.
After graduating from Stanford
Law School, Galvin-Almanza became
a public defender in San Jose, Cali-
fornia , and later moved to New York
City, where she worked for the Bronx
Defenders. There, she learned holistic
defense, a style of representation that
involves handling both legal issues and
life issues, providing clients with an in-
terdisciplinary range of comprehensive
services in addition to zealous advocacy.
Galvin-Almanza dreamed of one
day making this style of representation
achievable across the country. Instead,
she found a system stacked against
any approach that required additional
resources, regardless of proven results
such as reductions in recidivism and
a decrease in the deleterious effects of
arrests on communities, families and the
futures of those accused.
Rather than challenge the system,
Galvin-Almanza decided to work within
it to empower those she believed were
in the best position to effect change:
public defenders.
In 2017, she co-founded Partners for
Justice, a national nonpro t that em-
beds nonlawyer advocates with public
defender of ces to provide what she
calls “wraparound” service. Partners for
Justice recruits, trains and continuously
10 QUESTIONS
Preserving
Potential
Innovative nonprofit organization
supports public defenders
and their clients
BY JENNY B. DAVIS
A
low-income defendant. An
overworked public defender.
An underresourced legal
system and a cash-strapped
local government.
Most people wouldn’t look at this
scenario and immediately think “op-
portunity,” but that’s what sets New
York City lawyer Emily Galvin-
Almanza apart—and explains her
innovative approach to legal reform.
After graduating from Stanford
Law School, Galvin-Almanza became
a public defender in San Jose, Cali-
fornia , and later moved to New York
City, where she worked for the Bronx
Defenders. There, she learned holistic
defense, a style of representation that
involves handling both legal issues and
life issues, providing clients with an in-
terdisciplinary range of comprehensive
services in addition to zealous advocacy.
Galvin-Almanza dreamed of one
day making this style of representation
achievable across the country. Instead,
she found a system stacked against
any approach that required additional
resources, regardless of proven results
such as reductions in recidivism and
a decrease in the deleterious effects of
arrests on communities, families and the
futures of those accused.
Rather than challenge the system,
Galvin-Almanza decided to work within
it to empower those she believed were
in the best position to effect change:
public defenders.
In 2017, she co-founded Partners for
Justice, a national nonpro t that em-
beds nonlawyer advocates with public
defender of ces to provide what she
calls “wraparound” service. Partners for
Justice recruits, trains and continuously
ABA JOURNAL | FEBRUARY–MARCH 2022
14
Inter Alia | 10 QUESTIONS
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