Abusers in New York are getting off scot-free, thanks to the state’s pro-criminal “discovery” rules and the progressive pols keeping them in place.
Last week, a Manhattan judge dismissed the case against a brute who allegedly beat his girlfriend and ripped her clothes off in front of his friends on a trivial technicality.
As a result, she couldn’t even get a restraining order to stop him from attacking again, and had to move after he kept harassing her.
Prosecutors’ fatal blunder?
They failed to turn over to defense the info on how one of the arresting officers once got dinged for letting an inmate “escape” for a whopping 20 seconds.
Ridiculous, but New York’s 2019 discovery “reforms” require prosecutors to collect, review and provide to the defense within 30 days a mountain of irrelevant evidence, including all police-disciplinary records for every officer on scene.
If the defense can show prosecutors overlooked anything, no matter how irrelevant, the perp walks — and victims get screwed.
Gov. Kathy Hochul wants some sanity restored by not tossing any case where defense attorneys can’t show how not turning over something actually harmed the defendant.
But the progressives who dominate the Legislature balk at this completely common-sense change; they just don’t care (or won’t hear) how the “reforms” have been disastrous for crime victims.
Defense lawyers have milked these rules ruthlessly: Forced dismissals have exploded 455% since the law passed in 2019.
And those are the cases that make it to trial; the monumental compliance burden forces prosecutors to focus on the worst-of-the-worst cases, so they’re declining to prosecute 26% more domestic-violence arrests, while yearly convictions for misdemeanors in general dropped 75%.
DA offices simply lack the manpower and resources to chase down every scrap of meaningless evidence now required for every case.
Which is the point — progressives want more cases thrown out or never pursued, victims be damned.
So a beaten woman who stands up and gets her attacker arrested, with ample evidence to prove his guilt, is suddenly back at his mercy.
That’s the outcome of laws that put criminals first.
And if those laws stand, it’s proof positive that “progressives” care more about abusers than their victims.
