A drawing made by Joaquin Winfield during his incarceration, which was included in his clemency application. (Source: Winfield's clemency application)
"Of the over 30,000 incarcerated individuals in the custody of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), only five other individuals, amounting to approximately 0.00012% of the state prison population, are also serving a sentence of 35 to life or longer for offenses classified as nonviolent under the penal law," Cardozo states in Winfield's clemency application.
Had Winfield been sentenced under the current penal law, Cardozo says he would have completed his maximum allowable time by now. But Winfield was sentenced under the since-repealed Rockefeller drug laws, which mandated harsh sentences for drug offenses. These laws were passed in the 1970s and served as the primary sentencing mechanism for drug laws in New York state until 2009, according to Kathryn Miller, an associate professor at Cardozo Law and co-director of the Cardozo Criminal Defense Clinic.
Miller told Law360 that most of the people affected by the Rockefeller drug laws have since been resentenced to shorter prison terms. Winfield went up for resentencing in 2005 but failed to secure a shorter sentence.
"We have tried to reconstruct exactly what happened [with Winfield] and have looked at his previous court appearances, and the best that we can come up with is that essentially, when he went up for resentencing, the resentencing judge reflexively imposed the original sentence, in part because of the trial judge's statement that Mr. Winfield was a 'kingpin,'" she said.
In fact, the Rockefeller drug laws aren't the entire reason Winfield received the sentence he did after he was convicted at trial of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first degree, among other related nonviolent offenses. According to his clemency application, the prosecution requested a sentence of 22 years to life following the verdict. The trial judge, however, used their discretion to depart from the recommendation.
But in his clemency application, Cardozo paints a picture of a man who spent his early adulthood struggling to keep his head above tumultuous financial waters, seeking acceptance and a future. They show the governor an artist, a brother and a father.
Winfield was referred to Cardozo by the Parole Preparation Project, an organization that helps people prepare for upcoming parole hearings.
"We were just so compelled by his case, that we felt the need to do whatever we could on his behalf," Miller said. "And unfortunately, the most available avenue of release was executive clemency."
Joaquin Winfield was born in 1965 to Bruce Winfield, an Indigenous Korean War veteran, and Sylane Winfield, a Black woman who grew up in the Bronx. Before he turned 2 years old, Joaquin's father was killed in a shootout with police following a domestic dispute between the couple. Sylane and her four boys tried to get by with the help of her late husband's Social Security and veterans benefits.
Joaquin was placed in the care of his maternal grandmother after his mother was sent to prison for assault. She was accused of shooting her boyfriend but was not convicted of the shooting. By the time he went back to living with his mother, he had fallen behind a grade.
After graduating high school, Winfield began attending Cazenovia College. But even with the help of a Pell Grant, he could not afford to continue his education. He worked as a porter, and eventually enrolled in SUNY Oneonta.
Barely able to pay his bills, Winfield sold marijuana, and, later, cocaine, during school breaks and the occasional weekend. The supplemental income helped him afford a condo for his girlfriend and her daughter.
In the years that followed, however, he lost the savings he stored in his childhood bedroom after a robbery, and was convicted of misdemeanor assault in the third degree after attacking the suspected perpetrator with a baseball bat. His financial pressures mounted after his girlfriend gave birth to twins.
Winfield's involvement with drugs landed him two felony convictions. Before his final arrest, he joined a roofer's union, hoping it would lead to a long-term career.
It was the fall of 1996 when a house Winfield dealt from was raided. He was dividing up cocaine into small batches when law enforcement arrived. The police found his cocaine, his scale and his gun. It was the last time he was arrested. He was offered a plea bargain of six years to life but went to trial. He was convicted of possessing 4.6 ounces of crack cocaine.
"This is not too long after the crack epidemic," Miller said. "People were really looking at drug use and drug dealing as being malicious. And there was a tendency among prosecutors to overstate the culpability that individuals had, to paint the portrait of the big bad drug dealer, not who's selling to individuals, but who's essentially taking over your town and harming your children."
After Winfield applied for resentencing, the new prosecutor on the case asked that his original sentence be imposed.
In a personal statement included in his clemency application, Winfield expresses regret for exploiting people's drug habits.
"One thing I know now is that just because drug possession and intent to sell is not a violent crime, does not mean that there are not victims," he writes. "It is a coercive crime."
One of the law students working on Winfield's case is Sarah Schwartz, who has spent a year and a half with the clinic.
"I know that he's really grateful for us, and he always really expresses that," she told Law360. "It's hard, I think, to understand how you come to terms with spending 26 years in prison. In October, he hit 26 years."
Schwartz was chosen to be Cardozo's only summer student.
"She actually took over Mr. Winfield's case from some previous students who had been working on it, and just established an incredible bond with him — really got to know him, got him to open up, got his family members to open up," Miller said. "All of the rich information that we have about Mr. Winfield's background is due to her efforts."
Cardozo believes executive clemency is likely Winfield's last remaining chance to secure his release. He will not be eligible for parole until March 2034.
At Great Meadow Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Comstock, New York, Winfield spends more than 20 hours a day alone in his prison cell due to his health, according to his clemency application. He passes time making art. He has lost strength in his left leg over the past two years, making it difficult to navigate the prison. His memory has also eroded.
Both of Winfield's older brothers have expressed the desire to take him in permanently if he is released. The Cardozo Criminal Defense Clinic has also agreed to help him find housing if the terms of his release require him to initially live in New York state.
Miller worked on the clemency application alongside law professor and Cardozo Criminal Defense Clinic co-director Jonathan Oberman. The law students who have worked on this case include Michael Gorodetsky, Alison Goldman and Tziona Breitbart of the class of 2021, Jenna Dunton and Isabelle Schwartz of the class of 2022 and Rebecca M. Laden and Brandon Boschi of the class of 2023.
"We are hopeful, given that [Hochul] has been someone who has been thoughtful about criminal justice reform, that she will be willing to grant a commutation in someone like Mr. Winfield's case where essentially we're only asking that he be treated as though he were sentenced under today's laws," Miller said. "We're not asking for a dramatic difference, or dramatic change, or for her to go out on a limb. It seems completely consistent with the type of criminal justice reform that she has been willing to support."
In his statement, Winfield says that he would like nothing more than to be released before the end of his life.
"If given the opportunity to leave prison and return to society, I know I will lead a simple, quiet life," he wrote.
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--Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.