The Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law Announces Client Deda Margilaj Has Been Pardoned by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer
The Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law (PCLJ) is pleased to announce that its client, Deda Malota Margilaj, was granted a full pardon by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on July 2, 2026. The pardon erases Mr. Margilaj's nearly fifty-year-old conviction and clears the way for the termination of the removal proceedings that threatened to deport him from the only country he has called home since childhood. Mr. Margilaj, 74, who arrived in the United States as a teenage refugee in 1970 and has been an engaged member of his community for over 50 years, can now remain with his wife, five children, eight grandchildren, and vast extended family.
Mr. Margilaj left Albania alone at age 17, ultimately arriving in Detroit, Michigan with nothing but a relentless work ethic. In 1975, he was a small business owner when he was arrested and charged with second-degree murder for the death of a man he shot while defending his brother, who had been shot by the same man. He was convicted in 1978 following a second trial, after the first ended in a hung jury, and was sentenced to seven to 15 years in prison. He served four and a half years , spending the entirety of his incarceration in the prison's Trustee Division reserved for low-risk individuals, earning his GED, and holding long-term work assignments, before his early release for good behavior in 1982. He was discharged from parole in 1984 and has not been arrested or convicted of any offense in the more than forty years since.
