Rory I Lancman

December 12, 2018 | New York Law Journal

New York's elected district attorneys are at war with the governor and legislature over a new, first-in-the-nation, State Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct charged with reviewing claims that those charged with enforcing the law in a court of law might, themselves, be acting unlawfully. The District Attorneys Association of New York has sued to declare the Commission unconstitutional.

By Rory I. Lancman and Rachel Graham Kagan

10 minute read

January 17, 2017 | New York Law Journal

Rory I. Lancman and Joshua Kingsley write: Gov. Andrew Cuomo's renewed push in his State of the State address to raise the age of criminal responsibility is a critically important component of criminal justice reform. It's also an opportunity for New York City—working with the judiciary, the district attorneys and the defense bar—to expand local policies and procedures to mitigate the effects of New York's draconian age threshold while we wait to see if the legislature heeds Gov. Cuomo's call.

By Rory I. Lancman and Joshua Kingsley

13 minute read

February 24, 2016 | New York Law Journal

Too often in New York City, the maxim "justice delayed is justice denied" is no mere abstraction, but a reality that wears down defendants, dispirits victims and cheats taxpayers. This is particularly true in the city's criminal court, where lower-level cases—misdemeanors and petty offenses—are adjudicated and where the gaze of policymakers and the press rarely settles

By Rory I. Lancman

7 minute read

July 25, 2014 | New York Law Journal

Rory I. Lancman and Daniel Pearlstein of the New York City Council write: The Eric Garner tragedy represents not merely the New York Police Department's operational failure to stamp out the use of chokeholds during arrests 21 years after the NYPD patrol guide banned the technique, but our legal system's failure to effectively deter chokeholds even after such high-profile tragedies as the Anthony Baez case in 1994 exposed the legal gaps that allow such conduct to go unprosecuted in state courts. The authors then examine the existing legal road map that investigators and prosecutors must navigate in determining whether criminal liability might attach to the conduct of the officers involved.

By Rory I. Lancman and Daniel Pearlstein

13 minute read