Hochul signs bail changes into law
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Governor Kathy Hochul signed the budget bill into law on Wednesday, which contains controversial changes to bail reform. Don Pollard/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
By Ryan Schwach
Governor Kathy Hochul was joined by the mayor and the city’s district attorneys in Manhattan on Wednesday as she signed changes to the state’s bail reforms into law. The changes, which go beyond the scope of the changes she announced last week when touting a conceptual agreement on the state’s budget, were hard fought by Hochul during budget negotiations and drew ire from state progressives.
The governor also laid out what she said is a “holistic approach” to public safety, with $772 million in investments to district attorneys offices, public defenders, youth programs and other law enforcement related entities.
“It's my firm belief that every single New Yorker deserves to feel safe and to be safe in their communities,” Hochul said. “Whether it's the local bodega owner worried about shoplifters, the mother who worries about her kids walking home from school, a young woman traveling late at night on the subway, or a community that overall just feels under siege from the day after day specter of gun violence.”
“For too many New Yorkers, the fear is real and fear can become paralyzing,” she added.
The main aspects of the bill include controversial changes to the 2019 bail reform laws. Those changes were one of the main holdups in negotiations over the budget, which was signed into law over a month after it was originally due.
“I'm glad we came to an agreement,” Hochul said. “A lot of spirited conversations. It was tough. But I knew we needed to get this done in our budget.”
Bail has continued to be a key issue for voters and politicians alike since the initial reforms passed in 2019. They have been amended nearly every year after their passage.
“I support its core premise,” Hochul said of bail reform on Wednesday. “I've always said that someone's wealth shouldn’t be the determinant of whether they go to jail or are freed. Two people accused of the same offense, one family has money, bails them out, they're back in school, back at their job, same offense, someone else is sitting in jail.”
But, Hochul said that judges should have more discretion when handing down pretrial conditions.
“I believe that judges should have the authority to set bail and detain dangerous defendants, full stop,” she added.
One of the biggest changes to the law includes rolling back the “least restrictive means” clause, which pushes judges to order whatever means are “least restrictive” pretrial. The clause has now been eliminated in all cases, not just those in which a defendant is bail eligible.
“It now gives them discretion if they need to hold violent criminals accountable, and upholds our fundamental belief in a criminal justice system that is fair and accessible to all and also ensures that poverty is never treated as a crime,” said Hochul.
She also added that judges have said the clause “ties their hands.”
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz was present on Wednesday, and put her support behind the removal of the clause.
“Eliminating the ‘least restrictive means’ language from the statute and affording judges greater discretion to impose non-monetary conditions is also a welcome amendment,” she said in a statement.
Other changes in the law would make it easier for judges to set other sorts of pretrial conditions, like simultaneously setting cash bail and other, non-monetary conditions, like supervision or electronic monitoring.
It would also open the door for judges to more freely send defendants to other locations like drug rehabilitation programs, rather than be released on their own recognizance.
Also, it allows defendants to apply for reduced bail if they are unable to pay what the judge initially sets.
Both Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams have said that the reforms have led to a rise in recidivism, a claim that is largely not shown in data collected by the state.
“There are decreases and recidivism for low level offenses, that's positive, but, this is what's most troubling, increases in recidivism for defendants charged with serious crimes,” said Hochul.
Here in New York City specifically, Adams has blamed recidivism for the vast majority of NYC’s violent crime.
“The recidivism issue, that is a real issue,” said Adams on Wednesday.
“There's a small number of people who are violent or dangerous,” he said. “The governor heard us and brought her team together, and we were able to zero in on those who are repeat offenders and that is important. Our goal was to make justice faster and fairer. That is what this budget is accomplishing.”
In 2019, the year before the reforms went into effect, around 19 percent of people released before their trial were rearrested. In 2020, that number increased to 22 percent. In 2021, the latest year data is available, around 20 percent were rearrested.
However, the overall number of people rearrested decreased during those years, data from the Division of Criminal Justice Services show. In 2019, around 18,913 people were rearrested. That number dropped to around 14,000 in 2020 and around 11,700 in 2021.
Additionally, decreases in rearrests were seen in instances where New Yorkers were released on their own recognizance and where New Yorkers had bail set against them. The increases in rearrests were seen only among New Yorkers who were released under supervision – the overall number of people released under supervision also increased during that time period, as the number of people who had bail set against them or who were released on their own recognizance decreased.
Throughout the budget negotiations, progressive lawmakers and criminal justice reform groups railed against the governor’s insistence that the laws be rolled back and her desire to include the changes in the state’s budget.
“Governor Hochul and the Legislature’s decision to yet again rollback New York’s bail laws, eliminating the well-established ‘least restrictive conditions’, is unconscionable,” a coalition of public defender groups in New York City said in a statement. “This move erodes the presumption of innocence, and it will balloon jail populations in dangerous and deadly facilities throughout New York, jeopardizing peoples’ employment, housing, education, access to critical services and bonds with their families and communities.”
Eight progressive legislators voted against the budget bill that included the bail chagnes, including Queens representatives Senators Kristen Gonzalez and Julia Salazar and Assemblymembers Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas and Zohran Mamdani.
“We did not get the budget New Yorkers deserve,” the legislators wrote in a joint statement, which did not mention bail reform.
On Wednesday, the governor touted other public safety related budget bill items, including added funding to district attorneys and gun prevention measures.
Hochul said that $347 million will go into the state’s gun violence prevention program and communities where gun violence has been a prominent issue.
“$70 million for communities to deal with the aftermath of gun violence to help lift them up to give them a purpose and help deal with problems that are specific to their neighborhoods,” said Hochul. “Help them cope with the pain and connect them with the resources because you see the effects of gun violence.”
District attorneys are getting an influx of $170 million as well. The money is expected to go toward discovery work. DAs and public defense firms, which also saw funding in the budget, have said that the 2019 discovery reforms have resulted in an increase in work and a rise in attrition.
“As prosecutors struggle with the challenge of complying with the discovery laws, funding for both capital improvements and personnel to assist in compliance is critical,” said Katz in a statement.
