Tag: bail
Law360: New York’s About-Face On Bail Reform Wins Few Fans
“The deal that passed the Senate on Thursday night and the Assembly on Friday morning makes crimes like second-degree burglary, promoting child pornography, vehicular manslaughter and several others bail-eligible once again. In a statement Friday, a coalition of New York City public defender groups that includes the Bronx Defenders, The Legal Aid Society and Brooklyn […]
NYC Defenders Condemn Effort To Gut Progressive Bail Reforms In Emergency Budget
April 1, 2020 Contact: Jared Chausow, Brooklyn Defender Services (JChausow@bds.org) Ryan Karerat, The Bronx Defenders (RKarerat@bronxdefenders.org) Redmond Haskins, The Legal Aid Society (RHaskins@legal-aid.org) Sam McCann, The Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem (SMccann@ndsny.org) Lupe Todd-Medina, New York County Defender Services (LToddmedina@nycds.org) ***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*** NYC DEFENDERS CONDEMN EFFORT TO GUT PROGRESSIVE BAIL REFORMS IN EMERGENCY […]
Slate: Cuomo’s Bail Reform Reversal Risks Explosive Coronavirus Spread in Jails
“The governor’s proposal also permits pretrial detention for a much wider range of offenses and allows judges to make guesses about the future “dangerousness” of a defendant (the likelihood that they will commit a new violent crime) based on the “weight of the evidence,” which flouts the presumption of innocence before a case goes to […]
The Intercept: The Backlash
Justine Olderman, of the Bronx Defenders, agreed. “One of the strongest lessons we’ve learned so far is just the fact of the backlash,” she said. “The drive to detain is so powerful, the drive to detain and punish mostly black and brown people from low-income communities is so strict, that it doesn’t matter how careful […]
The Post-Journal: Bail Reform Debate Deepens Among State Democrats
A group of New York criminal defense organizations, including The Bronx Defenders, criticized the proposal and said it assumes that judges and prosecutors can predict a person’s behavior. “This will result in injustice for everyone in New York and will certainly end up exacerbating racially disparate outcomes,” they said in a statement. State Assembly Speaker Carl […]
Gothamist: Murder of Nassau County Man Not Caused By Recent Discovery Reforms, Contrary To Official Statements
The Legal Aid Society of Nassau County, the Legal Aid Society of New York, Brooklyn Defender Services, the Bronx Defenders, the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Innocence Project & Citizen Action of New York issued a joint statement Wednesday that read: “The tragic death of Mr. Maldonado (Rodriguez) is, unequivocally, not the […]
Politico: Bail reformers take heat — Bloomberg to double ad spending — Cuomo names Medicaid panel
There are, defense attorneys say, plenty of cases to illustrate the opposite point: folks who have gone home instead of languishing in jail for want of a few hundred bucks, showed up for court, kept their jobs, and gone on with their lives. And yet, nobody with such a story has come forward to share it. […]
Politico: Bail reformers face public relations hurdle
“We know that people who have open cases are always hesitant to share stories with the press for fear that notoriety or attention to their case will somehow prejudice them in their case,” said Scott Levy, chief policy counsel at the Bronx Defenders. “And now those fears are heightened because we see that people who […]
Politico: Year begins with crime spike in NYC amid statewide bail debate
Eli Northrup of the Bronx Defenders, one of a small group of advocates who held signs supporting bail reform outside the mayor’s press conference, called it “kind of ridiculous” to argue “that a month of cherry-picked [stats] justifies a rollback of this needed reform.” “The mayor for some reason and the police commissioner seem hell-bent […]
NYU News: Arguments Against New York’s Cash Bail Reforms Are Dated
“But bail has little effect on the likelihood of defendants returning to court. After the Bronx Defenders bailed out 150 people, 95% of their clients attended every court appearance, and almost 50% of the cases were dismissed entirely. The high return rate fundamentally undermines the supposed purpose of bail — incentivizing defendants to show up to their […]