Edited by: TJVNews.com
In a conference held in Albany, New York, former New York Gov. David Paterson called upon New York state legislators to fix the bail reform law that is apparently releasing criminals that pose a dangerous threat to society into the public.
He is supported by his fellow Democrats, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Long Island Assemblyman Steve Englebright, who feel similarly about amending the bail reform law legislation.
“You just need to get assembly members to understand, we’re not killing bail reform, we are taking the parts of it that are already demonstrating that we went too far out of the legislation,” he told host John Catsimatidis on AM 970’s The Cat’s Radio Roundtable.
During his interview on The Cat’s Radio Roundtable, Paterson admitted that the reform law — which prevents suspects from being held pending trial on most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies — had some positive effects, yet his focus was on the fact that the legislation severely limited the judges’ ability to determine the criminal’s capability of being released or not.
“You don’t want people sitting in jail for 18 months because they can’t afford $200 bail, but at the same time, you don’t want anyone coming out on bail who’s a danger to society,” he said. “We want to make sure that if [someone] has a record of being violent, they can’t commit any further crimes before they are tried for the one before the court.”
Gov. Paterson related the bail reform law to the news involving the closure of Rikers Island, citing this as the reason for the reportedly-recent rise in crime.
“[By] cutting the population at Rikers, they’ve cut [the number of] real, hardcore criminals who are there,” he said.
In a related development on the issue of bail reform, last week, the Jewish Voice reported that Staten Island City Councilman Joe Borelli’s has urged Albany lawmakers to put their controversial bail-reform law to a public referendum.
“I am requesting that the New York State Assembly and Senate … place a referendum on the ballot that would ask voters’ opinions as to whether ‘bail reform’ should be repealed, changed or allowed to continue,” wrote the Staten Island Republican in a letter to the leaders of both houses, including the Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. He then warned them that the issue wouldn’t dissipate until there was action taken.
Passed by the Democrat-controlled state legislature in 2019, the law was designed to eliminate cash bail for low-level or non-violent offenses. Supporters say bail requirements fall disproportionately on the poor and minorities who are unable to make bail. Critics have based their argument on the criminals, such as serial bank robbers, who have been let loose. One famous example is the case of Tiffany Harris, who was busted for felony hate crimes against Jewish New Yorkers and released on three separate occasions because a judge was unable to impose bail.
Some of the law’s initial advocates, like Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have said they would like to see the law amended. However, critics like the Democratic Assembly hardliners have dismissed such calls, calling them out-of-hand terms such as “racist” and “bulls–t.”
The new law allows judges to set bail on a defendant accused of ‘a violent crime’. The nature that defines ‘violent crimes’, however, is not very clear. Some crimes were excluded from this law, such as second-degree robbery and second-degree burglary, which constitutes as breaking into a home when the resident is currently there. Nonviolent crimes range from misdemeanors to felonies, but can also include domestic violence. Some have raised the fact most defendants of domestic violence misdemeanors are considered ineligible for bail because of their protection-details.
“When so many people in so many different communities around our state feel as though their elected representatives aren’t working for them and have their own motives behind changes to cash bail, we need to allow New Yorkers to decide for themselves,” Borelli said. “People feel as though they’re third-class citizens behind special interests and political ambition and I don’t think anyone can blame them.”
