Justice delayed: Lengthy stays on Rikers jump as cases slow in courts
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As the state’s courts continue to deal with pandemic delays and other factors, its processing of felony cases have slowed, a new report found. The delays have led to an increase in the number of detainees held on Rikers Island for three or more years. Eagle file photo by David Brand
By Jacob Kaye
The number of detainees who have had to wait three years or longer on Rikers Island while their cases sluggishly make their way through the court system has increased by nearly 180 percent in the last half decade, according to a new report.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander’s office said in a report issued Tuesday that between 2019 and 2023, there was a 179 percent increase in the number of felony cases that took three years or more to reach a conclusion.
The lengthy stays, according to the report, have been caused by a number of factors slowing case processing down in the courts.
The delays, which have increased over the past several years following the start of the pandemic, have contributed to a ballooning population on Rikers that has threatened the city’s ability to stick to its legally-mandated plan to shutter the notoriously dangerous jail complex. They’ve also cost the city over $800 million a year and potentially contributed to the already high level of violence on Rikers.
“No one should have to wait three years for their day in court, in the inhumane and violent conditions of Rikers Island or anywhere else,” Lander said in a statement. “The increasingly long delays of New York City’s justice system are not only violating the constitutional rights of detainees – they are also wasting hundreds of millions of dollars each year in New York City taxpayers’ money, without making our city any safer.”
The comptroller’s report featured an analysis of 111,000 people discharged from Department of Correction custody between 2019 and 2023. The timeframe was selected because many of the delays seen in the court system are directly or, at least partially, attributable to the pandemic.
Driving the increase in the length of stay on Rikers are murder cases, the report found.
Since 2019, the average time it has taken for the courts to process a murder case has jumped by 37 percent – going from around 19 months to 27 months.
Of the 207 murder cases that required more than a year to process in 2023, the average detainee was in DOC custody for three years, Lander’s office said.
“Lengthening the amount of time an individual spends awaiting trial in a New York City jail does not increase public safety or accountability; it simply delays justice and costs the City more money,” the report read.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said in a new report that the number of detainees who had to wait three years or longer on Rikers Island while their cases sluggishly made their way through the court system has increased by nearly 180 percent in the last half decade. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye
Delays in the court system have come as a result of a number of reasons, the report said. The Eagle has reported in the past on several of them, including the DOC’s issues getting detainees to their court appearances.
As staffing numbers for the DOC began to fall in recent years, so too did the DOC’s ability to get detainees to the city’s courthouses. From May 2023 to May 2024, the number of court appearances made by detainees held in DOC custody decreased by 34 percent when compared to the year prior, according to the department’s data.
The report also cited the impact of reforms made to the state’s discovery laws, which primarily require prosecutors to turn over all evidence they have against a defendant to defense attorneys within a specific timeframe or otherwise risk having the case dismissed.
“Discovery reform was intended to result in the prompt exchange of information between the prosecution and defense to resolve cases more swiftly, but the effectiveness of those reforms have been hamstrung by implementation challenges, especially with respect to inter-agency sharing of data and police records,” the report read.
In a statement, Office of Court Administration spokesperson Al Baker said the state’s court system “works vigorously every day to decrease case processing times and increase efficiencies to eliminate excessive delays in the adjudication of criminal cases.”
“This ongoing work ranks among the judicial leadership team’s highest priorities — separate from ongoing considerations about how and where to best manage detainees,” Baker added. “The UCS recognizes that we share in the collective responsibility for expeditiously and justly resolving cases and ensuring a healthy, robust judicial ecosystem – one that respects the constitutional rights of the accused and the fairness owed to the prosecution.”
According to Baker, court leaders review reports each week that detail how many criminal cases in the city’s Supreme Courts have been pending for over six months, a year and two years.
“Our judges work constantly to keep criminal cases moving forward, by actively managing the discovery process, setting deadlines for filing and responding to pre-trial motions and facilitating plea negotiations,” the spokesperson said. “To be sure, the best proposals for meaningful solutions to these longstanding issues are wrought from a clear understanding of the factors causing delays. The UCS continues to work with all criminal justice system stakeholders to try to find ways to achieve greater efficiencies together.”
As felony cases have slowed, the population on Rikers Island has grown. The increase in detainees has threatened the city’s ability to transition to its four planned borough-based jails, the first of which is scheduled to open two years after the legally-mandated deadline to close Rikers Island.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has denied that it has the ability to meet Rikers’ August 2027 closure deadline, largely in response to delays in the construction of the borough-based jails. It has also cited the increase in the detainee population, which will not be able to fit in the four new jails at its current size.
The mayor and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams late last year together reformed the Rikers Commission, which has been tasked with crafting recommendations to close Rikers. The chair of the commission, former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, said on Tuesday that Lander’s report “demonstrates clearly the opportunity for criminal cases to move more quickly in New York City – and how dramatically that will safely and smartly lower the artificially inflated population at Rikers.”
Lippman also praised the leadership of the court system he once ran.
“We are fortunate to have strong leadership at the Office of Court Administration leading efforts to tackle criminal case timelines and delays,” he said. “As the report makes clear, unified action by all justice system stakeholders – from the courts to the city to district attorneys and defense lawyers – will hasten the day Rikers will close and save taxpayers significant sums.”
“The Rikers Commission looks forward to our continued work with all partners so collectively we can all play our essential roles in shuttering the dangerous, counterproductive Rikers jails forever,” he added.
The comptroller made a number of recommendations in the report that his office said would help the city and the court system reduce the amount of time it takes for felony cases to reach their conclusion.
Lander’s office said a working group should be established “with the explicit goal to reduce the population at Rikers Island to triage and expedite cases on an ongoing basis and propose and execute systemic reforms.”
The comptroller said that while the court system currently works with stakeholders to address the delays, “there is currently no formalized plan or working group dedicated to identifying and confronting systemic challenges or holding the many actors that contribute to case delay, including prosecutors and defense, NYPD, and DOC, accountable.”
The comptroller also called on the courts to adopt enhanced goals to expedite the processing of felony cases in a manner consistent with national best practices.
Lander’s office also called on the courts to make two major technology improvements.
The report recommended the courts create new scheduling software so that they can better keep track of the case management process and reduce delays. It also recommended they implement discovery technology improvements “to enhance and expedite access to NYPD records and case files for prosecutors and defenders.”
Baker, the OCA spokesperson said the court system looks “forward to reviewing the report’s recommendations with a goal of continuing our work toward finding solutions to the delays in criminal cases that are detrimental to everyone involved.”
