Editorials

Read the court papers to overturn conviction

New York Times, O'Hara Turns The Tables on Hynes
New York Times

Clear John O'Hara's Wrongly Stained Record
New York Daily News

Did Joe Hynes cross ethical lines?
Brooklyn Ron

Voting is a right, not a crime
Times Union

Begging the gov's pardon for John O'Hara
New York Daily News

Gov. Andrew Cuomo should pardon political-vendetta victim John O'Hara
New York Daily News

Gov. Paterson's final interview about the O'Hara pardon

Gov. Paterson commuted John White’s prison sentence, now he must pardon John O’Hara
New York Daily News

A Life in Court: Friendship and Corruption Inside the Brooklyn System
The Brooklyn Ink, Alysia Santo

Gov. Paterson, pardon John O'Hara!
Time Union, David Kaczynski

Casting a vote made me a felon: As I later learned, the charges against me were fueled by politics
NY Daily News, John O'Hara

The Ballad of John Kennedy O'Hara
Bay Ridge Interpol

A voter, a felon and a lawyer
Times Union

Pardon him, sir: Paterson should clear Brooklyn man of the crime of voting
NY Daily News

Go, Alvin, Go!
Room Eight, John O'Hara

Pardon him, Governor: Brooklyn victim of political persecution should be exonerated
NY Daily News

D.A. Hynes and the Residency Meltdown
Room Eight, Vincent Nunes

Voting Isn't A Crime
New York Daily News

A Voting Outrage
Times Union, Albany

Triple Jeopardy
New York Sun

Hitting'em Where They Live
New York Daily News

Residency Redefined Under the Election Law
New York Law Journal

Voters As Convicts
Times Union, Albany

Brooklyn Eagle Cartoon

No Excuse for Slick Rick Pardon
New York Daily News

 

Pardon him, sir: Paterson should clear Brooklyn man of the crime of voting

NY Daily News
July 21, 2010

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/07/21/2010-07-21_pardon_him_sir.html

Gov. Paterson is reported to be planning to issue hundreds of pardons before his time expires in five months. Let him not get carried away, but let him include John O'Hara among those who benefit from a governor's extraordinary power to wipe the slate clean.

O'Hara is a man who was wrongly branded a felon after three trials in an overzealous prosecution, heavy with political overtones, by Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes.

A political gadfly, O'Hara had long annoyed the Brooklyn Democratic Party. He came to Hynes' attention after challenging an incumbent for election and wound up the first person convicted in this state for voting since Susan B. Anthony's trial in 1873.

There was no fraud. He did not cast more than one ballot. The only issue was that O'Hara, who had two residences, supposedly voted from the wrong one.

Following his 1997 conviction, O'Hara was disbarred as a lawyer and completed a sentence of 1,500 hours of community service and five years of probation. He paid a $20,000 fine and began fighting to clear his name.

In October, the Appellate Division restored O'Hara's law license. A special panel of attorneys who reviewed the case for the court found "grave doubts that Mr. O'Hara did anything that justified his criminal prosecution."

The panel stated: "Mr. O'Hara, accurately, it appears, claims that the machine went gunning for him."

He applied for a gubernatorial pardon Nov. 2 and is deserving because his conviction represented an unwarranted, unwise and unjust application of the brute force of criminal law to a citizen who got under the skin of a few politicians.