#Fdny department general order trial

Outside NYC, felony arrests fell by 12% between 20, while murders rose by over 56% and violent crime with a firearm rose by 35.5%. Aggregated NYC crime clearance rates dropped in the first quarter of 2020 and, other than one quarter since, have remained below 30% since then. Citywide, felony and misdemeanor drug arrests combined fell by over 48%-even though illegal drug activity expanded, evidenced by drug overdose deaths up by nearly 80%. In New York City, adult felony arrests fell by 14% between 20, while NYC shootings rose by 102% and murders rose by over 51%. The statute, therefore, has correlated with a devastating rise in crime and a drop in arrests. Witnesses are granted less anonymity and, understandably, by all available measures and reporting, are choosing not to testify in increasing numbers of cases. Meanwhile, guilty pleas fell in NYC from 45% to 21%-and statewide, from 49% to 33%-as defense attorneys have, correctly, become more confident that cases will be dismissed rather than go to trial.Īdditionally, under the new discovery statute, prosecutors are forced to share witness information and grand jury testimony early on and even if a witness is not going to testify at trial. Statewide, dismissals rose by 14% in that period. In NYC courts, dismissals rose from 44% of all disposed cases in 2019, to 69% in 2021.

And because discovery must now be met within New York’s preexisting “speedy trial” time windows, on pain of automatic dismissal, thousands of viable cases have been thrown out-not because justice demands it but simply because the compliance burden has proved too great. In statewide local courts, they are met on 16% of cases, and in NYC local courts, that number dwindles to 13%.

The new discovery obligations are indeed so herculean that NYS prosecutors have been able to meet them within the mandated time frames on only 21% of cases.

New York’s new discovery rules, which went into effect in January 2020, were such an extreme and far-reaching version of “reform” that even famously progressive Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg recently complained: “My Office’s lawyers and support staff continue their herculean efforts in managing discovery-related obligations.” The Legal Aid Society, which represents and advocates for criminal defendants, correctly crowed that, rather than simply reinforcing prosecutors’ discovery duties, as intended, 245 “is transforming New York State’s criminal justice system.” The NYS Legislature can correct the systemic harms caused by 245 and increase fairness to defendants, reduce administrative burdens on police and prosecutors, and rebalance risk so that the consequences of noncompliance align with substantive impacts on due process. It has forced district attorneys’ offices to triage cases and has harmed both the victims of crime and, in the long run, many criminal offenders. However, New York’s 2019 discovery statute, Criminal Procedure Law Article 245 (“245”), has crippled the state’s criminal justice system with an untenable compliance burden that prevents it from being either just or appropriately adversarial.

#Fdny department general order trial

All prosecutors are required to hand over relevant material to defense attorneys prior to trial, a process referred to as “discovery.” Discovery is fundamental to a fair trial because it is impossible for defendants to make informed plea-bargain decisions if they do not know the strength of the evidence that prosecutors have against them.