WASHINGTON – Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown-Jackson granted compassionate release to a man who killed a U.S. marshal on church steps while helping his brother escape from custody.
She ruled last year that LaVance Greene, at age 72, “no longer presents the significant risk of danger that his offense of conviction suggests.”
The chief U.S. marshal had opposed release, calling it an affront to the family and memory of marshal Norman Sherriff and to all marshals.
The Justice Department opposed it too, stating Greene didn’t demonstrate that he was not a danger to the community or that he was sufficiently rehabilitated.
In 1971, Greene’s father died.
His mother requested furlough from prison for son Randolph Greene, who at the time was serving 20 years for bank robbery.
His warden granted it and sent him to a funeral home in Washington with Sherriff and three other marshals as escorts.
When mourners moved to church, the marshals took him there.
Sherriff stayed outside and the others took Randolph Greene inside.
During the service brother LaVance pulled out a gun and disarmed the marshals.
The brothers rushed out the door and Sherriff fired at them.
LaVance fired at Sherriff and when he fell, LaVance fired two more times.
The brothers took a car at gunpoint and drove away.
Police caught them in an hour.
A judge sentenced LaVance Greene for 35 years to life.
Greene appealed on various grounds including insanity, to no avail.
In 1985, he sent an apology letter to the marshals he disarmed.
In 1989, he helped prison guards put down a riot.
Parole commissioners denied parole in 2003 and 2006.
In 2010, a hearing examiner recommended parole and commissioners denied it.
They found it wasn’t reasonably possible that he wouldn’t violate the law.
“These brazen and vicious acts and your lack of acceptance of responsibility for them cause the commission to conclude that you remain a risk to the community,” they wrote.
Commissioners denied parole in 2017, finding it would compromise public safety.
They found he engaged in serious criminal conduct since his last hearing; they found it involved possession of a dangerous weapon and threatening staff.
Hearing was set in five years.
In November 2020, Heather Wade and Jessica Steinberg of George Washington University moved for compassionate release.
They called him an excellent candidate, considering his fervent support in the prison bureau and vast evidence of full rehabilitation.
They stated that his loved ones committed to providing housing as well as financial, emotional, and spiritual support.
They stated he was vulnerable to the virus because he suffered hypertension.
“Mr. Greene accepts full responsibility for his egregious conduct, feels deep remorse for the murder he committed, and is haunted by the offense every day when he thinks of the pain and suffering he caused to the victim’s family," Wade and Steinberg wrote.
Marshal service director Donald Washington, now in private law practice, opposed the motion by letter to judge Brown-Jackson.
He stated that consequences for such acts must be severe.
He stated the service believed he should serve a life sentence in its entirety and that, “No lesser deterrent is appropriate.”
In the government’s response to the motion, assistant U.S. attorney Kacie Weston wrote that the enormity of Greene’s crimes couldn’t be overstated.
She stated he minimized his role throughout the years, claiming he was insane and the guns just started going off.
She stated his apology letter maintained that he didn’t deliberately kill Sherriff.
Brown-Jackson released Greene on Feb. 2, 2021.
She found parole commissioners and federal courts have decidedly different aims in evaluating release requests and they apply markedly different standards.
“Greene’s advanced age, 49 years of imprisonment to date, and current serious medical conditions unquestionably constitute extraordinary and compelling reasons that justify his release despite the abhorrent nature of his criminal offense,” Brown-Jackson wrote.
She found she must look beyond the offense and consider the extent to which the threat he posed at sentencing remained.
“Greene’s characterization of his offense at a parole board hearing over ten years ago says little about the extent of his remorse today,” she wrote.
She found that while he objected to certain details of the commission’s account, “he has never implied that he did not commit the instant crime or that he does not fully appreciate the consequences of his actions.”
She found numerous prison officers testified at hearings that he was “a completely reformed and model inmate whom they would welcome as a neighbor.”
She found reprimands in prison weren’t unusual and the nature of his infractions didn’t cast doubt on a conclusion that he wouldn’t pose a danger to society.
On the matter of threatening staff with a weapon prior to his last hearing, she found the bureau confiscated a tool he used for artwork.
In March 2021, President Biden nominated Brown-Jackson to succeed attorney general Merrick Garland as appellate judge of the Second Circuit.
Senators confirmed her last June by 53 to 44.
Biden nominated her to replace Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on Feb. 25.