State senate leaders cave to pressure, propose bail reform reform
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A bail bonds office on Queens Boulevard. Eagle file photo by David Brand
By David Brand
Democratic leaders in the New York State Senate said Wednesday that they are willing to compromise on new bail reform legislation, giving in to intense pressure from opponents of the newly enacted law that eliminates cash bail on most offenses.
The amended measure would get rid of cash bail altogether, while giving judges discretion to remand defendants, said State Sen. Todd Kaminsky.
Newsday first reported on the proposed bill, which Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said she would support. "We believe that this gets to the heart of the issues and that it is still progressive," Stewart-Cousins told Newsday.
A spokesperson for Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, a Queens senator who sponsored the bail reform law, declined to comment on the proposal.
Police unions, moderate and conservative lawmakers and various media outlets have assailed the new law, which eliminates cash bail on all misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, as well as certain robbery offenses considered violent. Several judges have also criticized the measure as a one-size-fits-all solution that takes power away from them.
“The scope of removal of judicial discretion on bail matters in this reform package is breath-taking,” said Bronx Criminal Court Supervising Judge George Grasso at a forum hosted by the Eagle Feb. 6. “New York state is the only state in the United States that does not let judges consider ‘dangerousness’ but instead resorts to twisted logic.”
Justice reform advocates pushed back against the senate plan for relying on judicial discretion and “risk assessment” tools, which create a score based on a defendant’s history to determine the likelihood that they will commit a crime or return to court.
A coalition of New York City public defender organizations, including the Legal Aid Society, said the “proposal puts politics over people” by “rolling back the critical and long-needed reforms that they endorsed and championed only a few months ago.”
The organizations also criticized a perceived capitulation to “hate-mongering.” Risk assessments, they added, would foster “a much more regressive system for pre-trial detention.”
Former Legal Aid Society Attorney-in-Chief Seymour James described problems with risk-assessment tools at the Eagle forum on Feb.6, indicating that the tools perpetuate racial bias in the criminal justice system.
“There are risk assessments used across the country and have been found to have a racial bias against the African American community,” James said. “A lot of that is based upon prior arrests and, in New York City, where stop and frisk practices existed … there were high numbers of African Americans getting arrested.
“Those arrests counts towards the evaluation on the risk assessment,” he added.
