|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Edited by: Fern Sidman
As the New York State budget deadline has approached, it appears that the tense negotiations between New York Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrats in the state legislature continues over a multitude of issues but in particular, the issue of overhauling bail laws and the rising crime in New York City and throughout the Empire State.
The New York Post reported that a deadlock exists over the issue but on Friday, Hochul suggested that she is inching closer to her stated goal of clearing the way to jail people ahead of their trials despite resistance from the state Senate and Assembly.
“There have been very productive conversations in this room … Many meetings as recently as yesterday and regular conversations about how we meet our mutual objectives to protecting public safety,” Hochul said at the state Capitol as Democrats got ready to miss the April 1 deadline for a new state budget, the Post reported.
As the state legislature has a formidable presence of far-left officials who are fighting for the rights of criminal offenders, the governor has her work cut out. The Post reported that she is proposing changes that would effectively allow judges to jail people accused of bail-eligible crimes who they believe endanger public safety or get charged with other offenses.
For her part, Hochul has claimed that her proposal would assist judges who are grappling with ambiguity about how the criminal justice reforms which were passed in 2019 conflict with a requirement they that impose the “least restrictive” conditions for criminal defendants, whether or not tweaks passed in 2020 and 2022 allowed for bail, as was reported by the Post.
She said, “There is an inconsistency in our law right now. That’s what I’m striving to fix with respect to the ‘least restrictive’ means in particular.”
Experts in the law have argued that Hochul’s plan could effectively curtail or even put to an end, New York’s longstanding law that limits judges to using bail as a way to ensure that criminal defendants appear in court, who are officially innocent until proven guilty, the Post reported.
As to New York residents who have weighed in on the hot button issue, the Post reported that 72% of them support giving judges more discretion to set bail while a staggering 92% believe crime in New York is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem. And 60% of New Yorkers are concerned that they could become yet another crime statistic.
The Post also reported that the issue of bail reform along with her controversial housing plan, has held up budget talks on other issues, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) told reporters Thursday.
Stewart-Cousins said, “We know that bail has really been defined everywhere. I mean people should know when bail is appropriate and when it isn’t. And so, no, I’m not interested in redefining bail,” according to the report.
Both Stewart-Cousins and Heastie have been the forefront of opposing efforts to undo current bail laws despite mounting criticism. The Post reported that they have noted on repeated occasions that the crime rate has soared on a nationwide level including in such states that allow judges way more discretion to keep defendants in jail prior to their trials.
Heastie has said that what has postponed discussion and resolution of other matters on the budget agenda has been bail reform and housing.
