Mayor Eric Adams implored Albany pols Tuesday to finally make changes to discovery laws and involuntary commitment – as he claimed that some state lawmakers deny the Big Apple even has a recidivism problem.
The call for action came as the state Senate and Assembly passed a stopgap funding bill amid stalled negotiations over Gov. Kathy Hochul’s mammoth $252 billion budget plan.
Lawmakers missed the April 1 deadline because they couldn’t agree over Hochul’s proposals overhauling criminal evidence-sharing laws and expanding involuntary commitments of mentally ill people.
Adams, during his weekly news briefing, argued the policy changes would help solve the city’s revolving door of repeat offender criminals — an issue he said some in the legislature have pooh-poohed.
“We’ve been in conversation with lawmakers who don’t believe we have a recidivism problem,” he said, without naming the denialists.
New York City has seen a surge of recidivism after a swath of criminal justice reforms enacted in 2020, said NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Felony assault, auto theft and robbery are respectively up 146%, 118% and 83% since the laws, Tisch said.
“What we have asked partners in Albany to do is to look at these laws and make necessary reforms, and close some unintended loopholes that had been opened since 2020,” she said.
“The reforms that we’ve put forward, I think are surgical, they’re a scalpel approach. They do not bend the spirit of the criminal justice reforms of 2019.”
Advocates with The Legal Aid Society — which has helped lead a push against Hochul’s proposals — contended Tisch is misleading the public.
The governor’s proposal on discovery amounts to a wholesale repeal of the law meant to keep accused criminals such as Kalief Browder from languishing behind bars awaiting trial, they maintained.
“Moreover, the data refutes Commissioner Tisch’s claim that ‘serious violent felony cases’ are being dismissed,” a statement from Legal Aid reads. “The vast majority of dismissals in New York City involve misdemeanor cases—cases that typically result with no jail time—not violent felonies.
“If this wrongheaded proposal is adopted in the final budget, accused New Yorkers will not receive the full weight of the evidence pending against them in a timely fashion. Her proposal is not in the ‘spirit of the law,’ as Commissioner Tisch alleges, and this statute would revert to an era defined by wrongful convictions, case delays, mass incarceration, and coerced pleas.”
Legal Aid advocates argued a measure giving prosecutors direct access to evidence databases would clear up delays causing case dismissals.
Tisch, for her part, dismissed the idea as “window dressing.”
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