As a career prosecutor, and the District Attorney of the fourth largest of New York’s 62 counties, I waited with great anticipation for the Governor’s proposed changes to our discovery laws, which were billed as being enacted to roll back some of the damage done to New York‘s criminal justice system by the 2019 Criminal Justice “Reform.”
Unfortunately, the rhetoric coming out of Albany does not match the reality, as the watered-down changes in this budget will do very little to assist my prosecutors in our daily practice. The changes will not alleviate the tremendous burden placed upon prosecutors and crime victims by the discovery statutes, and justice will continue to be adjudicated on clerical technicalities rather than legal merits. Worse still, these minor modifications will serve as an excuse for lawmakers to walk away thinking the problem has been solved.
Eng