No Plans to Delay, Change NY's New Criminal Justice Laws, Senate Leader Says
Prosecutors in New York have pushed back on the new laws since they were approved by the Legislature in late March. They've said their offices will need more funding to comply with the reforms, particularly when it comes to discovery.
December 09, 2019 at 12:58 PM
6 minute read
The likelihood that New York state lawmakers will act to roll back or delay upcoming reforms to cash bail, criminal discovery, and the right to a speedy trial grew smaller Monday as the leader of the State Senate confirmed that her members would not support such a move.
That means that, absent extraordinary circumstances, the state's new criminal justice laws will take effect on their intended start date of Jan. 1, 2020.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Westchester, told reporters in an Albany suburb Monday that there wasn't majority support in her conference, at this point, to modify or push back the upcoming reforms.
"For the conference as a whole, absolutely not," Stewart-Cousins said. "I think people understand why we did this."
At the start of next year, New York's laws will change to end cash bail for most misdemeanor and nonviolent felony charges. That means defendants faced with those charges will be presumptively released before their trial date.
A handful of Democrats in the state Senate, in June, announced their support for legislation that would have partially rolled back the new law by adding more bail-eligible charges.
There wasn't support for the measure at the time, and the comments from Stewart-Cousins on Wednesday appeared to indicate that Democrats wouldn't coalesce around the idea during the upcoming legislative session, which begins next month.
The forthcoming changes will also set new deadlines for criminal discovery, or information that prosecutors and the defense intend to use at trial. Under the new law, prosecutors will have to provide discovery to the defense within 15 days of an arraignment in most cases.
New rules were also created to prevent attorneys, particularly prosecutors, from delaying a defendant's trial date through procedural tactics. That's intended to prevent situations where defendants are kept in jail for months, or years, before their trial.
"It's about justice," Stewart-Cousins said. "It's about not allowing somebody to languish in jails for years, months, awaiting their ability to be told what they're being tried for and certainly the opportunity to prove themselves innocent, or be proven guilty."
Prosecutors in New York have pushed back on the new laws since they were approved by the Legislature in late March.
They've said their offices will need more funding to comply with the reforms, particularly when it comes to discovery. New York hasn't previously had such a tight time limit on when discovery has to be disclosed to the defense. That takes manpower, prosecutors have said.
That's because each document, or piece of evidence, has to be reviewed individually by prosecutors and members of law enforcement to find what information has to be disclosed to the defense, and what can be withheld—like identifying information, for example.
Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler, the current president of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, said last week that their position hasn't changed.
"The process of retrieving and preparing discovery is laborious and requires staff and technology," Hoovler said. "An expedited and expanded discovery process requires more resources."
Those calls have been echoed in recent months by members of law enforcement, like the New York Sheriffs Association, and even municipal leaders. They've made a last-ditch effort in recent weeks to stop the reforms, calling on the Legislature to return to Albany and approve a delay.
Stewart-Cousins said Monday that Democrats in her chamber, at least, were not planning to return to Albany before January to put the new laws on hold.
"No delay. We have people who have not been convicted of anything, but because they don't have money, they can't get out," Stewart-Cousins said. "Then you have people who, obviously, are accused of serious crimes, but because they have money, they get out."
On the concerns over cost, Stewart-Cousins didn't close the door on that possibility. She said Democrats in her chamber would discuss whether to push for more funding for law enforcement, or if that's even possible. The state is currently facing a $6.1 billion budget deficit.
"I'm not deaf to what people are saying and I'm not going to preemptively insist that we have to roll back or give money, or so on and so forth," Stewart-Cousins said. "I think Jan. 1 is coming and we'll watch this unfold."
"I know change is scary. Change is hard, and I appreciate their opinion," she later said.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, who leads Democrats in the Assembly, took the same position in a conversation with reporters last week. He said the reforms were necessary, but acknowledged there may be some growing pains among prosecutors.
"Nobody likes to change the way they do business, but I think coming up with a system that treats people equally and fairly without having access to money is the right system to have," Heastie said.
The state Legislature is set to return to Albany for next years' legislative session at the beginning of January.
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