NY’s criminal justice system isn’t working, chief judge says
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Chief Judge Rowan Wilson delivered his third State of the Judiciary address on Monday. Wilson called on lawmakers to pass major sentencing reform and asked judges to reconsider before handing out lengthy prison sentences. Photo by David Handschuh/Unified Court System
By Noah Powelson
New York’s top judge on Monday called on lawmakers and judges to enact major sentencing reforms to address a criminal justice system in New York that “just isn’t working.”
Chief Judge Rowan Wilson devoted the entirety of his third-ever State of the Judiciary on Monday to plead his case before New York’s legal community, calling on them to reconsider the lengthy prison sentences handed out by judges over the past several decades.
Citing how New York state currently has a larger per capita prison population than Russia, Wilson argued during his annual address that keeping people incarcerated long term is a detrimental expense to the state, hurts local communities and ultimately prevents prisoners from true rehabilitation. In New York, where the annual cost of incarcerating one person runs taxpayers well over half a million dollars, the number of incarcerated people over the age of 50 has doubled since 2008. Beyond waiting for their day before a parole board, there are very few options for elderly prisoners originally sentenced to decades behind bars to petition the courts for an early release.
“Our criminal justice system isn’t working,” Wilson said. “Maybe it hasn’t really ever worked.”
Wilson on Monday voiced his full support for the Second Look Act, a bill sponsored by State Senator Julia Salazar and Assemblymember Latrice Walker. The legislation would create a formal process for New Yorkers serving a sentence of 10 years or more to ask for their sentence to be reevaluated after a number of years.
In addition to his call to lawmakers, Wilson also demanded the judges in the court system he runs also work to address New York’s high rate of lengthy sentences.
“Overincarceration had everything to do with the courts,” Wilson said. “No prosecutor, no jury, no legislator or executive branch official imposed a prison sentence. Everyone sentenced to prison in New York was sentenced by a judge of the Unified Court System.”
To underscore his message Monday, Wilson took the unprecedented step of ceding the microphone to two New Yorkers currently incarcerated in New York prisons and two others who were recently released.
Among them was Tami Eldridge, a 51-year-old from Queens who has spent the past 25 years in Bedford Correctional facility.
Tami Eldridge, a 51-year-old incarcerated woman from Queens, delivers remarks at the State of the Judiciary address as Department of Corrections and Community Supervision Commissioner Daniel Martuscello III and Chief Judge Rowan Wilson look on. Photo by David Handschuh/Unified Court System
In a room full of some of the most powerful people in New York, Eldridge shared her story of the physical abuse she experienced as a child, how she was homeless for much of her youth and, about how, in short succession, her brother was brutally murdered and her mother died from breast cancer. After having her first child Eldridge’s boyfriend got into some legal trouble, throwing the young family into a financial crisis. In an act of desperation, Eldridge said she committed murder.
“To this day it is an act I regret with all my being,” she said on Monday. I destroyed my victim’s life, my own life and the lives of so many people – and I still do not forgive myself.”
After over a decade in Bedford Correctional, Eldridge decided to continue her education within the prison’s walls. She earned an associate’s degree in 2017, a bachelor’s degree in 2023, and in 2024 she received her master’s from New York Theological Seminary.
She’s said she’s currently pursuing her second master’s in business administration to help her daughter and her community members start their own businesses.
Within Bedford, Eldridge works as a teacher assistant for undergraduate classes, builds libraries for master’s degree programs and teaches classes to new mothers at Bedford’s nursery.
“I wish I could do this work on the outside, out in society,” Eldridge said. “I know that I might never leave Bedford Hills, but others will. And so I help everyone I can get signed up for school. I help the other women at Bedford work on turning their lives around and be prepared to go home. But most importantly I help them become the best versions of themselves.”
Eldridge wasn’t the only incarcerated person to share their story Monday afternoon.
Christopher Martinez was convicted for second-degree murder when he was 17 years old. Martinez was sentenced to 65-years-to-life, which he is currently serving at Shawangunk Correctional Facility.
“Was I, a 17-year-old first time offender, incorrigible?” Martinez said. “Was I beyond redemption and rehabilitation? What did the judge see in me that made him order a sentence I could not survive?”
Martinez said that the prospect of not living to see his first parole board, which he won’t be eligible for until 2049, frequently made him consider suicide as he navigated the violent world of incarcerated life.
Like Eldridge, hope for Martinez came in the form of education. In 2019, Martinez became the first in his family to receive a higher-education degree when he received an associate’s degree. Four years later, he received a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
His three-year-old son witnessed him graduate.
Christopher Martinez (left), who is currently incarcerated, gave remarks to some of New York’s top lawmakers and court officials during the 2025 State of the Judiciary address. Photo by David Handschuh/Unified Court System
“While he may not have remembered or understood the graduation, for me it was one of the few times I felt relief in my punishment,” he said. “For the first time at my graduation I felt like my family was not being punished for my sins.”
“Today, I am one of many creating a new pipeline, the school to prison to college pipeline,” he added.
Both Eldridge and Martinez, who were both sentenced for murder, received a standing ovation from the crowd before they were escorted out of the room before ultimately being taken back to prison.
“Mr. Martinez surely did something very wrong but that isn’t the question before us,” Wilson said after Martinez’s remarks. “The question is whether the judge who sentenced Mr. Martinez might have been wrong when he decided the actions of a 17-year-old required a sentence rendering Mr. Martinez ineligible for release until he is 82 years old.”
At the end of the program, Wilson made a plea to all judges to consider the impact long-term sentences like the ones Eldridge and Martinez face have on communities throughout the state.
"What we are doing is not the best we can do,” Wilson said. “I know that…and I believe you all know that too. We can all do better. Won't we?"
