On behalf of the 2,100 town and village judges who are members of the New York State Magistrates Association, we are appalled by the openly biased and poorly supported report released on April 3 by The Fund for Modern Courts entitled, “Fines and Fees and Jail Time in New York Town and Village Justice Courts: The Unseen Violations of Constitutional and State Law.”

The report, which begins with a conclusion, then uses flawed, outdated information to support its conclusion, is part of an ongoing effort by the New York City-based Fund for Modern Courts to discredit our state's constitutionally-supported local justice system, which serves the towns and villages of Upstate New York.

To support its supposition that town and village justices treat defendants with insufficient funds unfairly, the report conveniently cherry picks years-old data from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct and a 2006 Action Plan for Justice Courts, a document that is now 13 years old.

While the report acknowledges that the issuance of warrants and the jailing of individuals for non-payment of fines, fees and surcharges routinely occurs in city courts throughout our state, the report chooses only to focus on data points related to town and village courts. In 2017, for example, the commission reported that 84% of all complaints were lodged against city and state-level judges, not town and village justices, a fact that was not mentioned in the report.

The sampling used to support the findings was flawed as well. The majority of the data collected to support the report originates from a survey of public defenders and defense attorneys–-based upon questions developed to elicit the data to support its conclusion. In addition, there is absolutely no indication of the geographical sampling pool or size, and there was no apparent sampling of other interested stakeholders.

Lastly, any conversation about improving how our justice system handles defendants with insufficient funds needs to include a review of mandates. Our judges have advocated for changes to the mandatory fine, surcharge and fee structures imposed upon the courts by the state. Mandatory surcharges are often higher than the actual fines in some cases and lift fees for suspended tickets can be as high as $70.  The report fails to make any recommendations to alleviate these monetary dictates upon our judges.

The members of the New York State Magistrates Association stand ready to address real concerns in a collaborative and objective manner, devoid of the unsupported attacks based upon a preconceived bias.

Town Justice Tanja Sirago is the executive director of the New York State Magistrates Association.

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