Gov. Cuomo’s commuting of Judith Clark’s sentence for second-degree murder and robbery charges in connection with the Brinks armored car robbery in Nannette, N.Y., In 1981 makes Ms. Clark eligible for parole in 2017 and raises some interesting points of view.
No matter how the proponents for Miss Clark couch their rhetoric, the fact remains that three decent family men were murdered in the course of doing their jobs, trying to uphold the law, in response to a crime for which Ms. Clark was found guilty.
Ms. Elaine Lord, former superintendent of the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, where Ms. Clark has been an inmate for most of her 35 years of incarceration, stated that she has witnessed Ms. Clark “change into one of the most perceptive, thoughtful, helpful and profound human beings I have ever known either inside or outside of prison”.
Assuming for the sake of argument, that Ms. Lord is correct in her assessment, what better for Ms. Clark to make the best use of her quiet attributes and truly repay her debt to society, than to remain in prison and to minister to the inmates who would surely benefit from Ms. Clark’s perceptive insights.
Let the day that either Sergeant O’Grady, Officer Brown, or Mr. Paige walk into the correctional facility and ask for the keys to her cell, so that they may set her free, be the day that she leaves prison.
Jack Benigno
New Hyde Park
