Gothamist: How A Sealed Arrest Can Get You Arrested In New York

“’There are a lot of cases where people were arrested or faced prosecution, and they were innocent,’ said Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, from the Bronx Defenders. “We need to protect them, and we need to protect our values that people should be presumed innocent, and they shouldn’t face the consequences [of an allegation], unless it’s been proven in a court of law.”

Borchetta has filed a class-action lawsuit against the New York Police Department. She’s challenging its longstanding practice of downloading sealed records into the same databases populated by unsealed records. There, officers can access all records without distinction, whether sitting in the precinct at a laptop or in their cruisers with a smartphone.”

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