Date/Time: March 27, 2025, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Location: James Chapel, Union Theological Seminary
Please enter at the 90 Claremont Avenue entrance.

Please join us on March 27 from 6-8pm at Union Theological Seminary for an in depth discussion about pending Second Look Act legislation. The discussion will feature a report by researchers at the Center for Justice at Columbia University along with the insight of key legislators, partners and system impacted individuals. Over the past 50 years, New York’s laws have resulted in increasingly harsh sentences — with no opportunity for sentencing judges to review and reconsider individual cases. Second look legislation will allow incarcerated people to petition a judge for a sentence reduction based on evidence of rehabilitation and the interests of justice. It would grant New Yorkers the opportunity to return to their families and rebuild their lives and their communities. 

RSVP to join us to learn about this legislation, ask questions, and get involved.

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Our Speakers:

Judge Marva Brown presides over cases in the Manhattan Criminal Court.  She was elected to the Kings County Civil Court in November 2023. Prior to taking the bench,  Judge Brown worked as a Public Defender for more than 17 years.  She holds a Juris Doctor from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (Yeshiva University) and a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University.  

Judge Brown began her career in 2006 in the District Court Bureau of the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County, where she represented hundreds of clients facing misdemeanor charges.  In 2008, Judge Brown transferred to the Legal Aid Society, where she represented clients from arrest to trial on a range of matters from quality of life offenses to homicide in the Bronx and Brooklyn.  She gained additional experience in public policy by working in the Special Litigation and Law Reform Unit of the Legal Aid Society.  

Judge Brown resides in North Crown Heights with her husband and their three children. She is on the Board of the Friends of Brower Park and Families and Friends of the Wrongfully Convicted. In May 2022, Judge Brown received the Woman of Distinction Award and Proclamation from NYS Assemblyman Brian Cunningham.  In August 2023, she received the Harriet Tubman Award from the 77th Precinct Community Council in recognition of her dedication and service to her community.  Judge Brown enjoys reading and traveling in her spare time.

Mujahideen Muhammad, MPS ‘24 is a research assistant at The Center for Justice at Columbia University and the founder of The Pillars of Promise, an organization committed to promoting positive images of incarcerated individuals to the public and advocating for equitable treatment and legislation for those incarcerated in New York State prisons. He earned a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science from Hudson Link/Mercy University and a master’s degree in professional studies of Urban Ministry from Union Theological Seminary. Muhammad is a passionate advocate for ending mass incarceration and granting second chances to incarcerated people with excessive sentences.

Wilfredo Laracuente is a staunch advocate for criminal justice reform, drawing on his lived experience to champion legislative change and second-chance opportunities. As a member of DANY’s Reentry Advisory Board and a Workshop Readiness Instructor for Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, Wilfredo empowers individuals impacted by the criminal justice system to rebuild their lives and engage meaningfully with their communities.

Wilfredo’s personal transformation—culminating in earning a bachelor’s degree from Mercy College in 2019 while incarcerated—informs his passionate support for the Second Look Act, which seeks to create fairer sentencing practices and recognize personal growth. His work underscores the belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to demonstrate their rehabilitation and contribute to society.

Post-incarceration, Wilfredo has facilitated Reentry Transitional Workshops for Fedcap IMPACT and mentored youth through the Justice Ambassadors Youth Council and the New Settlement Community Center. His efforts focus on addressing systemic barriers, advocating for vulnerable populations, and ending cycles of violence.

As a Teaching Assistant for Columbia University’s Prison Education Program, Wilfredo has seen firsthand how education transforms lives, a belief he carries into his fellowship with Columbia’s Beyond the Bars program. There, he examines the unique challenges facing women—the fastest-growing prison population—and advocates for trauma-informed approaches to reentry and rehabilitation.

Through his advocacy, mentorship, and educational work, Wilfredo exemplifies the principles of the Second Look Act, promoting a justice system rooted in fairness, humanity, and the capacity for change. His commitment to systemic reform aligns with the mission of creating a society that values redemption and equity.

Brian Fischer spent over forty-four years in the field of corrections, becoming the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections in 2007, and retiring in 2013.  Prior to his retirement, he consolidated the Division of State Parole and the Department of Corrections into the now existing Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and coordinated the downsizing of the agency by closing prison farms, annexes, camps and several medium security prisons.

Mr. Fischer has been an ajunct professor at both John Jay College of Criminal Justice  and Pace University.  He was a member of the Standards Committee of the American Correctional Association, and the New York Sentencing Commission.

He earned the Warden of the Year Award from the North American Association of Wardens and Superintendents in 2006 and was honored by the New York State Bar Association with their Outstanding Contribution in the Field of Corrections award in 2012.  He was also given the Thomas Mott Osborne Medal by the Osborne Association and an honorary Degree of Laws from Bard College, both in 2013.

While in corrections he was the Superintendent of Sing Sing Correctional Facility for seven (7) years and helped implement many programs to provide needed services for the mentally ill, including an innovative reentry and early release programs, and institutied short-term Parole Violator Treatment Centers.  He was instrumental in advancing non-trditional rehabiliation programs operated by the Osborne Association and Rehabilitation Through the Arts.

During his tenure as Commmissioner, Mr. Fischer implemented the Sex Offender Management Treatment Act passed into law by former Governor Spitzer and the settlement of a class action lawsuit filed by Disabilities Advocates, Inc., a state sponsored agency authorized to protect incarcerated individuals with mental and developmental disorders.  The settlement involed the development of treatment programs for all those mentally and developmentally challenged, and special programs for such inmates placed in disciplinary segreation units for violations of prison rules.

Mr. Fischer has been a frequent lecturer on criminal justice.  Some of his lectures include the keynote speech at Fordham University on “Conditions of Confinement” which was published in the Fordham Law Journal, vol. XXXVI, No. 1,  and at the University of Buffalo Law School with a speech called, “New York’s State Prisons 40 Years After Attica: What Has Cahanged and What Changes Lie Ahead.”  He also spoke in 2012 at the Albany Law School on the subject of the “Aging Prison Population”, and at the New York Bar Association on Civil Rights at their conference on “The Increased Use of Solitary Confinement in New York State Prisons: Violation of Human Rights or Necessary Prison Management Tool?”  He was also a panelist at the Benjamin Cardozo Law School symposium on entitled, “Life in the Box: Youth in Solitary Confinement”, and a panelist at The Justice Initiative at Columbia Universary on  entitled, Reducing Incarcertion, Endless Punishment, Long-Term Sentences and Aging in Prison – Or Release & Reentry.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, a Master’s Degree in Guidance and Counseling and a Master’s Degree in Professional Studies.

Patrick Stephens is a Leadership Fellow at the Center for Community Alternatives, freelance writer for The Appeal magazine, board member of Columbia Reentry and Advisory Council member of the Children’s Defense Fund. He is also an adjunct member of the New York City Bar Association’s Mass Incarceration Task Force and sits on its Corrections and Community Reentry Committee.

As a systems impacted person, he is an avid restorative justice practitioner and advocate for trauma informed care. As an alumni of both the Bard Prison Initiative, where he earned his BA degree, and New York Theological Seminary, where he earned his Masters degree, he is a public speaker, consultant and advocate for prison abolition.

Professor Steven Zeidman is the Co-Director of the Second Look Project: Beyond Guilt and the Defenders Clinic at CUNY School of Law.  A graduate of Duke University School of Law, he is a former staff attorney and supervisor at the Legal Aid Society. He has taught at Fordham, Pace, and New York University School of Law and was awarded the NYU Alumni Association’s Great Teacher Award in 1997 and CUNY’s Outstanding Professor of the Year honor in 2011. Professor Zeidman is a member of the Appellate Division’s Indigent Defense Organization Oversight Committee and the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section Council, and serves on the Board of Directors of Prisoners’ Legal Services and the Parole Preparation Project. He served on several statewide commissions, including the Commission on the Future of Indigent Defense Services and the Jury Project. Professor Zeidman was a member of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee for the Judiciary in the Bloomberg and Giuliani administrations. He has published numerous op-eds and articles and presented on a range of issues, including mass incarceration, judicial selection, evidence, and the ethical dimensions of the effective assistance of counsel.

Serena Martin serves as executive director of New Hour for Women and Children, an organization dedicated to empowering mothers, women and children impacted by incarceration. New Hour provides fifteen weekly programs inside Long Island’s three jails and provides reentry support to those returning home from incarceration. Serena oversees and leads carceral reform efforts across New York State through advocacy and policy reform efforts. Prior to leading New Hour, she was the executive director of Herstory Writers Workshop. Serena also served as associate director of policy at the Correctional Association of New York’s Women in Prison Project, where she spearheaded legislative initiatives and policy advocacy addressing prison reform. She was a key organizer of the Anti-shackling law which now prohibits the shackling of incarcerated mothers during labor. Serena is a survivor of isolated confinement, received her associate’s degree in the College Bound Program at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and her bachelor’s degree from Adelphi University. Serena serves on Governor Hochul’s NYS Domestic Violence Task Force as a regional co-chair, serves on the Suffolk County Welfare to Work task force, co-led the Justice for Women COVID-19 Task Force along with WCJA and served on the Suffolk County Police Reform and Reinvention Task Force. She is a recipient of the 2024 Elizabeth Ann Seton Medal, the 2023 Islip NAACP Award, the 2022 Houses on the Moon Leyton Award, the 2021 Advocate of the Year Award from Sepa Mujer, the 2018 Citizens Against Recidivism award and she enjoys cooking her family’s favorite Puerto Rican meals.

Noah Remnick is an organizer and lecturer at the Columbia University Center for Justice, where he teaches college courses in history at a variety of correctional facilities across New York.

We would like to thank our partners for this event: