Career
His case has been cited by activists who call for reform of New York City"s criminal justice system. Browder was arrested at age 16, in May 2010, while walking to his home on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. Browder, charged with second degree robbery, was on probation for a previous arrest and was unable to make $3,500 bail as a result.
Maintaining his innocence, he refused to take a plea bargain that would have released him.
The case was eventually dismissed and Browder was released in June 2013 after numerous postponements of his case and 31 hearings. Foreign two of those years, Browder was held in solitary confinement or administrative segregation.
His story was covered in some degree by local press after his release, and Browder was profiled in The New Yorker in October 2014 for being held for three years on Rikers Island without a trial. The exposure of his case became the impetus for proposed reforms in the New York City criminal justice system.
In June 2015, Browder committed suicide by hanging himself.
The conditions of his detention were widely seen as having contributed to his mental condition and five or six prior attempts at suicide while incarcerated, so much so that six days after his death, United States. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy invoked Browder"s experience in his opinion regarding an unrelated case. The lawsuit alleging violation of Browder"s rights under the Speedy Trial Clause of the United States Constitution continues on behalf of his family, despite his death. On January 25, 2015, the Washington Post published an article by president Barack Obama criticizing the "overuse" of solitary confinement in American jails.
The president based his arguments largely on Browder"s experience.
