Kalief Browder. Kalief Browder (May 25, 1993 – June 6, 2015) was a black youth from The Bronx, New York , who was held at the Rikers Island jail complex, without trial, between 2010 and 2013 for allegedly stealing a backpack containing valuables. During his imprisonment, Browder was in solitary confinement for two years.
Brendan O'Meara was appointed as Browder's public defender. Browder always maintained his innocence. Although the assistant district attorney, Peter Kennedy, called Browder's a "relatively straightforward case", his trial was delayed by a backlog of work at the Bronx County District Attorney 's office.
Arrest. On May 15, 2010, police apprehended Browder and a friend on Arthur Avenue near East 186th Street in the Belmont section of the Bronx . Browder said he was going home from a party. He thought the police were carrying out a routine stop-and-frisk, a police procedure he had undergone on a number of occasions.
Browder was jailed at the Robert N. Davoren Center (RNDC) on Rikers Island. Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the RNDC had a "deep-seated culture of violence", in which inmates suffered "broken jaws, broken orbital bones, broken noses, long bone fractures, and lacerations requiring stitches".
Browder's communication with O'Meara was mostly through Browder's mother. O'Meara said Browder was "quiet, respectful, he wasn't rude", but he appeared "tougher and bigger" over time. Browder told O'Meara that he wanted to go to trial; he was offered a plea bargain of 3.5 years in prison if he pleaded guilty.
examination and later enrolled at the Bronx Community College (B.C.C.). He participated in the City University of New York 's "Future Now" program, which offered a college education to previously incarcerated youths. Browder completed 11 credits and finished his semester with a grade point average of 3.56.
Nobody from the Bronx DA's office was held personally accountable for keeping Browder incarcerated for 3 years without a trial or a conviction.