"Pardon him, sir!" — editorial by New York Daily News
July 21, 2010— Read here

O'Hara reinstated to practice law!
Read here

Statement by actor Holt McCallany


I’ve known John O’Hara my entire life. We grew up together and our mothers have been best friends for fifty years. Some of my fondest memories are of summers I spent as a boy helping him with his political campaigns.

O'Hara was indicted by the Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes, for a crime that the New York Daily News editorial board called a "prosecutorial jihad". John was charged with registering to vote, and voting. He didn't vote twice in the same day, nor did he vote from a false address. His crime was that he had two apartments in the same neighborhood he's lived in for his entire life, and the one he voted from was not his "principal and permanent" residence. Charged with seven felony counts, John was facing 28 years in prison for voting. The last person to be tried for "illegal voting" took place in 1873 in Rochester, New York. The defendant in that case was Susan B. Anthony.

Sometimes we value our liberties by the price we pay for them, and nobody has paid a higher price for voting than John. Confined by probation for 5 years, fined $20,000, disbarred as an attorney and ordered to do 1,500 hours of community service by cleaning garbage in the very same parks we once campaigned in, John never became bitter or disillusioned, but he also never gave up.

He is the first person in Brooklyn ever tried three times on the same charge, and the case of People –v– O’Hara has became one of the most expensive criminal cases in New York’s history. John’s only real crime was refusing to bow to the crown of the corrupt party machine. An act for which he should be honored, not condemned.

Statement by actor Chris Noth

On Election Day, thousands of New Yorkers, including myself, could be subject to felony prosecution when we cast our vote. This is because of a precedent set by the case of the People v. John O’Hara. O’Hara’s story has been chronicled in Harper’s Magazine, in scores of articles in the New York Times and in every major daily, and even overseas in the pages of magazines like the New Zealand Herald.

Because of the dangerous precedent created by the O’Hara prosecution, anybody with two or more homes can face prison time if they vote. Students living out of dormitories can go to jail for voting. Homeless people living in shelters can be prosecuted if they vote, along with people who have recently lost their homes through foreclosure.

This petition asks the governor of New York State, David Paterson, to correct this injustice with a pardon for John O’Hara, who is today a convicted felon and a disbarred lawyer. This is not a liberal or conservative issue, it’s about justice.