Gov. Kathy Hochul is now pushing for critical new criminal-justice fixes as part of this year’s budget, on top of the minor wording tweak she seeks to the cashless-bail law. Good on her.
Because her bail-law tweak doesn’t go nearly far enough — and lawmakers have been resisting even that.
Hochul’s new plan is to give judges more leeway to keep cases alive if a prosecutor’s failure to meet all the requirements on evidence-sharing doesn’t significantly affect the case.
Defense lawyers would also have to challenge a prosecutor’s compliance failures within 35 days (unless a judge extends that).
And district attorneys would need to turn over only “relevant” — rather than all “related” — evidence, to prevent cases from being dismissed.
That means fewer criminals skating simply because prosecutors didn’t include some irrelevant material, as is now the case.
Those changes are essential, because current rules on evidence (known as “discovery”) have fueled a sharp spike in dropped cases, signaling to criminals that they’ll get away with their crimes.
That, in turn, has helped drive up the crime rate.
Lawmakers imposed the rules in 2019, along with “reforms” that let nearly every criminal but the most violent free without bail.
Hochul’s new plan is to give judges more leeway to keep cases alive if a prosecutor’s failure to meet all the requirements on evidence-sharing doesn’t significantly affect the case. Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy HochulThat’s proven catastrophic, with repeat offenses soaring.
Hochul’s looking to tighten that law slightly by freeing judges of having to impose “the least restrictive” means of assuring defendants return to court in the still-too-rare circumstances where the law otherwise allows for remand (bail or jail).
Her discovery fixes hold more promise.
The number of dropped cases in the city since those “reforms” has soared — from 44% in 2019 to 69% in 2021, per the Manhattan Institute.
With this proposed plan, district attorneys would need to turn over only “relevant” rather than all “related” evidence, to prevent cases from being dismissed. Christopher SadowskiOften cases are dropped or dismissed for the most ludicrous reasons: a prosecutor failed to include some irrelevant court transcript or cop log, for instance.
The requirements not only lead to dismissals on technicalities; they also force DAs to spend huge amounts of scarce resources to comply.
And prosecutors have been quitting in droves, rather than toil away chasing irrelevant paperwork.
The gov is raising these ideas late, but her leverage is arguably growing: The budget was due April 1, and lawmakers don’t get paid until a budget is passed.
New York state needs a lot of repairs to its botched criminal-justice reforms.
The more that get made now, the better.
