A New York federal judge released a man who had spent 27 years in prison after first sentencing the convicted robber to five life terms.
U.S. District Judge Frederic Block reduced Walter Johnson’s sentence to time served plus three years of supervised release. On Thursday, the federal prison in Otisville, approximately two hours northwest of Brooklyn, released Johnson.
Johnson, who went by the street name “King Tut,” spent nearly three decades in prison on robbery and narcotics convictions. He was the only person ever sentenced to mandatory life in prison in the Eastern District of New York, which includes Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, under a federal statute known as the Three Strikes Law, which targets repeat offenders, according to Mia Eisner-Grynberg, deputy attorney-in-charge of the Federal Defenders of New York, which represented Johnson.
Eisner-Grynberg’s court documents show that Johnson had no disciplinary infractions while incarcerated, helped to develop prison activities, and received praise from prison officials for his positive leadership.
“I now believe that my sentences, though lawfully rendered, were excessively harsh,” Block stated in his decision. “Just like prisoners who have evolved into better human beings during their lengthy periods of incarceration, judges also evolve with the passage of years on the bench.”
Block stated that the 2018 First Step Act permitted courts to reassess previous sentences and prisoners to seek early release.
Eisner-Grynberg stated in court records that Johnson would never have received five life sentences under contemporary judicial standards.
According to Eisner-Grynberg, Johnson, who is now 61 years old, plans to reside in Brooklyn with his family and give back to his community by “mentoring young men to steer clear” of the decisions he made.
“We are grateful for the humanity and humility that Judge Block exercised in reconsidering Mr. Johnson’s life sentence,” Eisner-Grynberg told the Associated Press. “Mr. Johnson’s extraordinary rehabilitation in the face of a death-in-prison sentence is a testament to his character and reflects his growth and change.”
Federal prosecutors who opposed Johnson’s early release detailed the violent robberies they arrested him and others for between 1995 and 1996.
“Nothing about the defendant’s current circumstances or time in prison supports a sentence reduction given the heinous nature of these crimes,” prosecutors stated in a letter to Block in April.
One of the primary victims of those crimes, whom authorities claim Johnson robbed many times and sexually assaulted, supported Johnson’s reduced prison term.
“This sentence has given me an opportunity to do a great deal of introspection and reinvent myself,” Johnson wrote in a March letter to Block, requesting his early release. “I now take responsibility for the pain that I caused in society when I was ignorant, reckless, and selfish.”
“Please give me the opportunity to live a life of peace, joy, and giving back, as Nelson Mandela did,” he said, referring to the South African leader who spent 27 years in prison.
