Three Queens detainees may be released from jail under city coronavirus plan
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The Queens Criminal Courthouse.
By David Brand
Three detainees charged in Queens will be released from city jails pending approval from the Queens District Attorney’s Office, as the city works to remove at least 40 people from detention amid the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The city had compiled a list of detainees for release, subject to approval by the five New York City prosecutors, in an effort to reduce the concentration of vulnerable people in custody, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday. The list includes three people who are charged or sentenced in Queens, the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice confirmed to the Eagle.
Another 10 detainees charged in Brooklyn are on the list for release, the Daily News reported.
Criminal justice reform advocates and several local lawmakers have called on the city to release more detainees from Rikers Island and other city jails to limit the number of people who contract COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, inside the confined jails. Correction staff at Rikers Island have already tested positive for the illness.
“Taking sensible steps to release vulnerable people serves the public interest in a way mass detention does not,” Brooklyn Defender Services said in a statement.
The effort to release more detainees is complicated by the division of authority between the state and city, however. Only state action can release roughly 700 people held in New York City jails on technical parole violations, for example.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment for this story.
In a statement Thursday, Katz said Queens prosecutors will consider the bail status of defendants in pretrial detention amid the effort to release detainees and people serving sentences in city jails.
“We are looking at individuals who have little time left on their sentences to see if the interests of justice would be served by their release,” Katz said. “We are also looking at those who have been identified by the [the city’s Correctional Health Services] as exceedingly high risk individuals due to their medical conditions.”
Katz also said her office will continue to prosecute low-level offenses on a “case by case basis” while identifying defendants and detainees to release from city jails.
In measured language Tuesday, Katz’s Brooklyn counterpart, DA Eric Gonzalez, said he would decline to prosecute low-level offenses that “don’t jeopardize public safety,” though a spokesperson told Brooklyn Paper that prosecution will still occur on a case by case basis.
Katz’s statement outlining her philosophy was the latest in a series of communiques from the Queens DA’s Office about the effort to reduce the number of people in the courthouse, and the number of defendants sent to the close confines of city jails.
“As we have done from the start of the year, we will continue to evaluate the prosecution of low level offenses on a case by case basis and decline to prosecute where appropriate,” Katz said in a statement.
Arraignments continue in Queens, but without defendants in the courtroom.
Instead, healthy people charged with crimes in Queens are currently being arraigned by video from Central Booking. Defendants who may be sick are transported to the Red Hook Community Court, one of two courts in New York City where unwell defendants are arraigned by video.
Court officers, assistant district attorneys, judges and public defenders continue to work in the arraignment part, however.
Multiple public defenders in Queens arraignments have said that court personnel have failed to heed “social distancing” guidelines to limit the spread of COVID-19.
“It puts everyone in the courtroom, and their families and friends, at risk of contracting and spreading the virus,” said public defender Joel Schmidt, a member of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys who worked in the Queens arraignment part Thursday.
“We're terrified, but we won't abandon our clients,” he added.
