International law firm Milbank LLP has announced a significant donation towards combatting injustices within the legal framework. The firm has pledged $1 million toward the establishment of an exoneration and resentencing review unit at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law’s Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice. The primary objective? Addressing serious disparities within the criminal justice system.
The joint project has already initiated operations, with Milbank and the Perlmutter Center currently undertaking four cases. Those involve individuals claiming wrongful conviction or arguing that their sentences were excessively severe. The unit will operate for a span of four years and under the Milbank name.
It’s not just about funding for Milbank. The firm has pledged its active participation in all phases of the mission. Milbank attorneys, working pro bono, will act in collaboration with their Perlmutter Center counterparts. Together, they will screen cases, investigate innocence and oversentencing claims, and represent clients in court or before conviction integrity units run by district attorneys.
According to Joshua Dubin, executive director of the Perlmutter Center, Milbank’s commitment to pro bono work paired with their dedication to seeking justice for those unjustly incarcerated positions them as an ideal partner in this endeavor. The hope is that this alliance will save and change lives.
Milbank and the Perlmutter Center currently assist John Edwards, one of four men imprisoned following a 1991 murder conviction based on testimony that a witness later recanted. Cases like his, alongside efforts to seek resentencing for a 69-year-old man who has served 20 years of a 25-year sentence for a minor robbery, attest to the breadth of injustice the partnership aims to tackle.
Established in 2022, the Perlmutter Center primarily works on cases involving “junk science.” This term indicates medical or scientific theories once utilized in prosecution but since discredited. The center, functioning primarily off a major donation from Marvel Entertainment’s Isaac Perlmutter and his wife, Laura, also assists individuals sentenced to excessive prison terms in seeking parole or clemency.
With the assistance of Milbank, the Perlmutter Center plans to scale up its operations, aiming to provide free-of-charge legal aid to a larger proportion of the 100-plus individuals who annually request its services.
For more details on this pivotal initiative, visit the original article on Law360.