State's new discovery law is upending prosecutions as dismissals soar - New York Post
It seems the Legislature’s Democratic leaders are so enamored of their 2019 criminal-justice reforms that they’re even willing to let domestic-violence offenders walk on technicalities.
This isn’t about the no-bail laws, but the also-outrageous new rules for discovery — that is, evidence prosecutors must share with the defense.
Lawmakers (and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo) put district attorneys on a clock: They must reveal all of their evidence, including names and addresses of witnesses and 911 callers, all relevant bodycam footage and cop memo-books, within 20 days of arraignment (or 35 days if the perp is free pending the charges).
Prosecutors must also be ready to go to trial within 30 days for violations and six months for felonies. Tick, tick, tick.
That’s proved a huge gift to defense attorneys, as judges are granting defense motions for dismissal of all charges, even serious ones, whenever prosecutors and police can’t provide every piece of “evidence” within the specified timeframes, even when it’s trivial (say, the logbook of an officer who merely visited the scene).
It’s been particularly harmful in domestic violence cases, as tossing the charges usually also vacates protection orders: The man who beat you severely not only walks scot-free on a technically, he’s not even barred from getting near you again.
In short, this “liberal reform” endangers battered women’s lives.
Gov. Hochul wants to ease the rule to “substantial compliance” in handing over evidence (among other sensible fixes), yet Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and the Senate’s leadership refuse to deal with such issues as part of the budget due April 1, but only perhaps consider changes in the remaining weeks of the session.
The fact remains that Heastie, Cuomo and the rest had no clue how their “reforms” would work out when they pushed them through — indeed ignored warnings from progressive prosecutors like Albany County DA David Soares. And now the Legislature’s leaders simply wave off the ample evidence of the harm done.
They broke New York’s criminal-justice system and refuse to fix it.
source: https://nypost.com/2022/03/23/states-new-discovery-law-is-upending-prosecutions-as-dismissals-soar/
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