Manhattan Deputy District Attorney Alvin Bragg advocates reduced sentences for violent offenders and supports restorative justice over prison time for a man who killed his friend.
Meg Rees, senior assistant prosecutor in the Prague office, said prosecutors need to challenge the view that criminals are “bad guys”.
Bragg and his team have come under intense scrutiny for their decision to indict Donald Trump over alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and others. Critics say the case is without merit and accuse Bragg of hounding Trump while he failed to keep New York safe by offering criminals light sentences or loose bail terms.
Bragg named Reese, a former Brooklyn and Nassau County district attorney, as the chair of his executive team in January 2022. She said at the time that she was looking to advance “innovative reforms in the criminal legal system.”
Prior to taking the position, she was chief of the social justice division for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, where she spoke enthusiastically about restorative justice, in which a criminal meets his victim—or those affected by their crimes—as part of the punishment and rehabilitation process.
Meg Rees, senior assistant prosecutor in the Prague office, said prosecutors need to challenge the view that criminals are ‘bad guys’.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a press conference Tuesday after Donald Trump appears in court. Bragg and his team have come under intense scrutiny for their decision to charge the former president over hush money payments
Donald Trump appeared in court on Tuesday and faces charges brought by the Prague office
In a debate in May 2021, she spoke of an “extraordinary” ongoing manslaughter case that seemed “appropriate for restorative practice rather than partial sentence”.
Reese explained that the killer knew his victim “quite well” and that the incident involved “a fight that ended in someone’s death”.
Speaking in 2017, Reese said prosecutors must challenge the view that criminals are “bad guys.”
She added, “The only survivor from the victim’s family was his daughter, who did not meet her father in reality, and because they are undergoing a correctional practice at the moment, this is the first time that she gets to know her father through this person.” who was accused of his death.
“I think it’s a complicated process for both people, but I think everyone comes out of it in a new way for sure,” Reese said.
Several years ago in 2017, Reese was Executive Director at the Progressive Institute for Prosecution Innovation at John Jay College.
In this role, she appeared on a discussion titled “Justice in the Age of Trump” and said that prosecutors should challenge the notion that criminals are “bad guys”.
“Should we use labels like that — when you say violent people versus people who commit violence?” she asked.
“People have committed violent crimes, but that doesn’t mean that person is permanently violent,” she said in a March 2017 interview. “I think that’s all part of the language that we need to consider that we’re using in the system.”
DailyMail.com reported Tuesday that Bragg and his team have freed several violent, career criminals in New York while hunting Trump.
The former president was supported by his children and their associates – but not by his wife. Eric and Lara Trump on the far left; Tiffany Trump and her husband, Michael Paul, seen at right. Don Jr. and his fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, are at the center of the group
Donald Trump addresses supporters at Mar-a-Lago after he was indicted in New York on Tuesday afternoon
Among them is a fraudster who has been caught more than 100 times and a serial offender who was released last week on $1 bail.
After appearing in court on Tuesday, Trump called Bragg a “criminal.”
In an outburst of anger during his 25-minute remarks to a crowd of family members and supporters at Mar-a-Lago, Trump let his frustration with the issue shine through.
He criticized his legal opposition, though Judge Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over the case, warned him to use his words carefully to avoid a gag order.
The former president called his opponents “a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and a family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris,” which drew groans from the crowd.
Trump also said that the real criminal in the case was Bragg, accusing him of leaking information to the grand jury.
“The criminal is the prosecutor for illegally leaking vast amounts of grand jury information for which he should be tried, or at least he should resign,” he said jubilantly.
