With even the Rev. Al Sharpton now calling for changes to the state’s 2019 “discovery” reforms — in his case over concerns of how they enable domestic violence — it should be obvious that only the most pig-headed ideologues still defend the changes that stack the pre-trial deck far too high in favor of defense lawyers and against the prosecution.
The rules basically require prosecutors to hand over all evidence on an extremely strict clock — at penalty of seeing the whole case thrown out.
The added paperwork alone is a huge advantage for the defense when it comes to plea-bargaining, and a major burden forcing District Attorney Offices to “triage” cases, letting many perps off easier, so they can focus on the worst cases.
Criminal-case dismissals in New York City stood at 41% before the discovery reforms and shot up to 62% in 2023, Office of Court Administration data show.
“We’re continuing to see a real urgent problem of a revolving door of criminals who are arrested and then let out on technicalities, free to commit crimes again,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul in January when she rallied with the five city DAs for reform.
Hochul’s proposed tweak would set a time limit for when defense attorneys can request that a case be tossed based on an alleged evidence violations. That small change would greatly reduce the number of dismissals springing bad guys on technicalities.
Last week, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch also argued that those discovery reforms have led to a shocking rise in accused criminals getting released on technicalities and driving recidivism.
Several dozen local law professors and other academics made the case to the contrary in a recent letter to the Legislature’s leaders, basically arguing that the status quo is the only way to prevent another horror like Kalief Browder’s 2015 suicide after lengthy pretrial detention at Rikers.
That’s absurd: A host of factors contributed to Browder’s despair and isolation; the issues involving the evidence in his case were minor.
Indeed, the Browder case also gets invoked as a reason against fixing the “no bail” law and the Raise the Age statute — that is, all the poorly written “criminal-justice reforms” that have driven New York’s post-2019 rise in crime and public disorder.
Those Ivory Tower legal “experts” and their allies at public-defender groups like the Bronx Defenders would rather 100 innocents be victimized and the perp walk free than see one criminal jailed.
They pretend there’s nothing wrong with the status quo that more funding and better technology can’t solve.
Hand it to Sharpton for flagging the “dangerous unintended consequences” of the discovery reforms, including the added risks to survivors of domestic violence.
A battered woman finds the courage to go to the cops — only to see her assaulter walk free, with not even a restraining order, and knowing she accused him: How is this justice?
Ultra-progressive Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg supports Gov. Hochul’s discovery-law amendments, arguing that they’ll protect crime victims while maintaining the transparency of evidence collected in criminal cases.
Revolving-door courts are putting New York’s most vulnerable at risk, as even violent repeat offenders get put back onto the streets, unjustly freed on technicalities despite arrest after arrest.
Those elitist law professors can bask in their imagined moral superiority in standing up for career criminals, but it’s ordinary New Yorkers who suffer the bloody results.
