Gerald "Gary" McGivern (October 26, 1944 – November 19, 2001) was an American felon found guilty in 1967 of the armed robbery of a gas station in Pelham Manor, New York, United States, during which two police officers were wounded.
On September 13, 1968, McGivern, Culhane and a third convict, Robert Bowerman, were being transported by two deputies, from Auburn State Prison to a court hearing in White Plains.
Westchester County Sheriff Daniel F. McMahon sent two of his deputies—Joseph Singer and William Fitzgerald—to Auburn to pick up the three prisoners and deliver them to court in White Plains.
McMahon was the former Public Safety Commissioner of Yonkers and a former chief of the criminal division of the office of the United States Attorney in New York.
An assistant for the Westchester County DA's office, B. Anthony Morosco, formally opposed Bowerman attending the hearing.
When the Chevrolet passed through Ulster County on the Thruway in the early afternoon, Robert Bowerman asked the deputies to stop the vehicle again.
The sequence of what happened next became the source of considerable dispute over the next three decades in three trials, numerous appeals, the polygraph tests McGivern passed, news coverage and controversy surrounding the grant of executive clemency.
The surviving deputy Joseph Singer claimed McGivern shot Fitzgerald and that the escape attempt involved all three prisoners.
Following the hung jury in 1969, Harry Thayer publicly admonished the jurors on the air for not returning a verdict, calling it an example of "Lace Panty Justice," a term meaning "soft on crime".
Defense attorneys filed an appeal brief citing negligence in the case investigation, inconsistencies in the testimony of Singer, the prosecution's main witness, negative pretrial publicity, an unfair jury selection process, and denials of motions for a change of venue.
The Culhane-McGivern Defense Fund was sponsored by the folk singer Pete Seeger, the poet Allen Ginsberg and the political commentator William F. Buckley Jr.
Dissent highlighted the judge's unfair charge to the jury and the suppression of Robert Bowerman's prior history of escape attempts.
A group of religious leaders including the Green Haven prison chaplain presented a petition seeking clemency for McGivern.
On December 31, 1985, he granted clemency to McGivern, an act that brought a firestorm of criticism from Republicans at state and national levels as well as from law enforcement personnel.
McGivern's papers are housed in the Special Collections of Lloyd Sealy Library at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
[4] The Gary McGivern and Marguerite Culp Papers include correspondence, writings, journals, legal documents, news articles, artifacts, and photographs dating from 1967 to 2003.