Judge ‘inclined’ to strip city of control of Rikers Island

A federal judge said she was inclined to strip the city of its control of rikers island on Wednesday, nov. 27, 2024. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye

By Jacob Kaye

A federal judge said that she was leaning toward taking the extreme measure of stripping the city of its control of Rikers Island after ruling on Wednesday that the Department of Correction violated over a dozen court orders by failing to keep detainees safe in the troubled jail complex.

In a highly-anticipated ruling, Judge Laura Swain sided with the Legal Aid Society and federal prosecutors, who represent the plaintiffs in the decade-old detainee rights case known as Nunez v. the City of New York, and said the city was in contempt of the 2015 consent judgment in the case. In the nearly 10 years of the life of the consent judgment, Swain said the city had failed to curtail stabbings and slashings, fights, assaults on staff, in-custody deaths and use of force incidents, which were at the heart of the original lawsuit.

“There has been no substantial reduction in the risk of harm currently facing those who live and work in the Rikers Island jails,” Swain said in the ruling. “Worse still, the unsafe and dangerous conditions in the jails, which are characterized by unprecedented rates of use of force and violence, have become normalized despite the fact that they are clearly abnormal and unacceptable.”

Swain, whose ruling comes several days after her court-appointed monitor in the case, Steve J. Martin, issued a lengthy report finding that violent conditions in the jail have largely continued under the DOC’s new commissioner, Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, found the city in contempt of all 18 court orders the Legal Aid Society claimed the city was in violation of.

Swain also said that she was inclined to grant the Legal Aid Society’s demand that she put Rikers Island into a federal receivership, taking control of the jails away from the city and putting it into the hands of a court-appointed authority.

Though Swain refrained from explicitly ordering the creation of a receiver, she said that it appeared to be the only way to get the city to fix the violent conditions that have plagued Rikers Island for decades.

“The last nine years also leave no doubt that continued insistence on compliance with the court’s orders by persons answerable principally to political authorities would lead only to confrontation and delay; that the current management structure and staffing are insufficient to turn the tide within a reasonable period; that defendants have consistently fallen short of the requisite compliance with court orders for years, at times under circumstances that suggest bad faith; and that enormous resources — that the city devotes to a system that is at the same time overstaffed and underserved — are not being deployed effectively,” Swain said.

“For those reasons, the court is inclined to impose a receivership: namely, a remedy that will make the management of the use of force and safety aspects of the Rikers Island jails ultimately answerable directly to the court,” she added.

The city, the Legal Aid Society, federal prosecutors and the monitor have been meeting regularly dating back to September, when Swain first ordered them to together craft the powers a receiver might have.

Regardless of how much control a receiver has over Rikers, it is almost certain that any form of receivership would have major implications for how the dangerous jails are run.

The Legal Aid Society has argued that a receiver should be given a bulk of the powers and responsibilities currently given to the DOC commissioner. Mayor Eric Adams and Maginley-Liddie, both of whom have publicly argued against receivership, are likely to push back against such a hand off of power.

In mid-January, the monitor is expected to issue a report detailing the substance of the meetings regarding receivership. The report will also include the proposed framework for the federal takeover.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Legal Aid Society "commended" Swain for her decision.

“This is a historic decision,” the spokesperson said. “The court’s recognition that the current structure has failed, and that receivership free from political and other external influences is the path forward, can ensure that all New Yorkers, regardless of incarceration status, are treated with the respect and dignity guaranteed to them under the law.”

This is a breaking story and will be updated.