Attorneys call out city for unsanitary court conditions
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A group of legal aid attorneys called out the OCA and DCAS for what they say are unsanitary and unhealthy conditions inside nonpublic courthouse spaces. Photo courtesy of the ALAA
By Jacob Kaye
As Queens, Staten Island and Bronx courthouses resumed in-person day arraignments Monday, public defenders across New York City called out the city for what they say are “deplorable” conditions.
The Association of Legal Aid Attorneys condemned the Office of Court Administration and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services for unsanitary and unhealthy conditions that they say are rife throughout city courthouses.
“As ALAA members returned to ‘in-person’ arraignments, they found that OCA and the City had not only failed to remediate the dangerous and unsanitary conditions, they had failed to take a single measure to clean or upgrade these areas from their pre-pandemic levels to meet even minimum standards of health and safety,” the union said in a statement.
The calls to clean up conditions come not only because COVID-19 remains a threat but because as proceedings resume, people who work in the buildings are seeing its conditions again with fresh eyes, attorneys say.
“We've always known it was bad but I think with COVID we just had the separation from that environment,” said Julie Sender, the Manhattan Criminal Defense Practice vice president of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys. “We don't have to just accept that we're going to get sick and that we're going to maybe bring roaches home or bring bedbugs home because we were at work and it was not cleaned.”
Sender, who mainly works out of the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse building at 100 Centre St., said that nonpublic courthouse spaces, inlucing jail cells, pens and meeting rooms for defendants and their attorneys, are often unsanitary.
Surfaces are stained, ventilation systems are covered in dust and pests like insects and rodents are sometimes spotted, Sender said.
The conditions are present throughout criminal courthouses in the city, including in Queens, attorneys said.
Attorneys from the ALAA say ventilators inside courthouses are inefficient and dusty. Photo courtesy of the ALAA
While the buildings are overseen by OCA, they are cleaned and maintained by DCAS, an OCA spokesperson said
“The condition of the building affect[s] all who work there, court staff and judges alike, who for the last fifteen months, managed to keep the justice system functioning and not constantly [complain],” the spokesperson said.
According to DCAS, there are certain areas of courthouse buildings that are off limits to its cleaning crews. Areas like holding cells are blocked off by the Department of Correction and the NYPD for safety reasons, according to spokesperson for DCAS.
“DOC and NYPD have dedicated facilities management staff for maintaining these areas,” the spokesperson said. “The areas in question are under DOC purview and they are thoroughly cleaned and sanitized once per tour, with common touch surfaces sanitized every few hours.”
Sender said that most frustrating was the fact that there was an opportunity to make upgrades and create more sanitary conditions when the courts were mostly closed.
“They didn't do anything and they had 16 months,” Sender said. “That was an opportunity where they really could have made the improvements, they could have upgraded the ventilation system and cleaned things...They had this opportunity to make it a safe place, which is in everybody's interest – it's in their interest.”
“It's not like, ‘Oh, you poor lawyers, you need a nice place to work.’ It would be nice if they thought that, but [it would help] just for their own efficiency,” she added. “We're sick of getting sick.”
This story was updated with a statement from DCAS at 10:50 a.m. on Tuesday, July 13, 2021.
