By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Feb 15 – Timothy Mitchell, detained in the MDC in Brooklyn, has had two sentencings in the past two weeks.
On February 15, 2023 U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Kimba M. Wood was holding the second sentencing, for gunfire and arson. Inner City Press went and covered it.
Mitchell's lawyer was describing a tragic childhood - and, apparently, abuse in prison while a cellmate of R. Kelly.
But her sentencing memo is nowhere in the docket.
Nor is Mitchell's sentencing memo in the docket of the case he was sentenced on last week, for a shooting, before Judge John G. Koeltl. In the case before Judge Koeltl, the US Attorney's Office memo has a large redaction, where it says it is responding to the "defense's submission." But where is the submission?
Inner City Press, which recently got a hearing in SDNY on sentencing submission over-redaction noting that Access to sentencing proceedings allows the public to understand the reasons behind a given sentence, a value reflected in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c), which states that sentencing shall be held in open court, in part to "enable the public to learn why defendant received a particular sentence." Alcantara, 396 F.3d at 206 (quotations omitted). Open sentencing proceedings are a safeguard against corruption, provide "community therapeutic value," and offer an opportunity for the public to see and reflect upon the "effect of laws that expand or contract the discretion of judges in imposing sentences." Id. at 198–99 (quotations omitted). The public also has a qualified First Amendment right to access judicial documents if they are "derived from or are a necessary corollary of the capacity to attend [ ] proceedings." As is the case here.
The Judge Wood case is US v. Mitchell, 20-cr-504 (Wood)
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