Category: In the News
No One in NYC Should Be Forced to Make These Choices
Karume James, a staff attorney in our Criminal Defense Practice, published the following piece in The Huffington Post about the need for reduced fare MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers and the impact such a program would have on our clients. “Among the many “broken windows” cases we get at The Bronx Defenders, I’ve always found arrests for […]
New York Times Editorial: A Nightmare Court, Worthy of Dickens
The New York Times Editorial Board weighs in on Trowbridge et al., v. Cuomo et al, our federal lawsuit challenging the epidemic of court delays in the Bronx Criminal Court. “This Dickensian nightmare is all too common in the Bronx, according to a class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday in Federal District Court by the Bronx Defenders, […]
Public Defenders In The Bronx, N.Y., File Lawsuit Over Court Delays
“Public defenders in the Bronx filed a lawsuit Tuesday against lawmakers in New York. They charge that courts are chronically understaffed, jeopardizing the right to a speedy trial for many defendants.” Listen to the story here. For more on the lawsuit, see our press release.
New York Times: Chronic Bronx Court Delays Deny Defendants Due Process, Suit Says
“Court delays in the Bronx — so troublesome that state officials had to create special courts to clear a backlog of felony cases — remain unresolved and have “fatally undermined the right to trial” for tens of thousands of people charged each year with low-level offenses, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.” Read the article […]
The Defenders
Longreads profiles The Bronx Defenders. “The quality of the lawyering among public defenders in New York City is universally understood to be very high; that wasn’t Robin Steinberg’s concern. She saw inadequacy built into the very structure of public defense. In the nineties, she noticed that more of the clients she was defending were being […]
Let Them Work
Emily Galvin, an attorney in our Criminal Defense Practice, published the following piece in Slate about the need to rethink prison employment. Most people are at least intuitively aware of the connection between poverty and prison. As Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, has said, too often the opposite of poverty […]
NYPD: Stop Evicting Families
Christa Douaihy, supervising attorney in our Civil Action Practice, published the following piece in The Huffington Post about the NYPD’s use of obscure laws to facilitate the eviction of families from their homes without basic fairness or due process. The Movement for Black Lives has, among many things, created a renewed sense of urgency for policy makers to address our […]
The Intercept: Terrorist Watchlist Errors Spread to Criminal Rap Sheets
Last February, attorney Anisha Gupta represented a Latino man charged with two misdemeanors: trespassing and resisting arrest. At her client’s arraignment, the first appearance before a judge where a bail determination is made, Gupta thought her client would be quickly let out on his own recognizance — meaning a release without posting bail; the prosecution […]
VICE: There’s a New Way for People Arrested in NYC to Avoid Jail
A 22-year-old black man stands with his hands clasped behind his back as the prosecution reads charges to the judge. Low-level assault, a class D felony. Recommended bail? $75,000. It’s 6:45 PM on a Saturday evening at Brooklyn Criminal Court, and the audience is comprised mostly of family members—some of whom will wait until one […]
Council Presses de Blasio Administration to Reduce Delays in Criminal Court
When Chidinma Ume, an assistant counsel in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, visited Queens recently, district attorney staff showed her around the courthouse, taking care to point out unused areas. “We gave her a tour of the courthouse, and how many locked doors that we have in courtrooms because we have […]