Don’t fail on bail

Good for Gov. Cuomo, who wields his maximum leverage in the budget process, for demanding lawmakers rejigger their poorly crafted new bail law as part of the state’s omnibus fiscal legislation. The statute rushed through last spring was well-intentioned — pre-trial freedom should never be contingent on a defendant’s wealth — but grievously flawed: A simplistic list of crimes made release mandatory for most lower-level offenses, leaving cash bail optional for others. That both kept cash in the equation for those accused of rape, murder and some assault, and failed to account for cases in which people charged with supposedly nonviolent crimes in fact present imminent threats to the public.

Nor does any provision in the new law enable judges to consider flight risk or serial recidivism.

Cut to: Legitimate worries that some of the city’s rising crime is linked to a fast-revolving door. Cut to: a subway scourge named Charles Barry openly articulating perverse incentives at play. Barry was arrested multiple times preying on tourists, the elderly, people with disabilities and others. At one arraignment, he bragged he could now repeatedly commit crimes with impunity.

Advocates insist that restoring some small measure of judicial discretion will inevitably open floodgates to discriminatory detention. Not so. A fix would allow judges to remand defendants, not lock them up only for want of a set amount of money, and only when prosecutors establish a risk of serious injury.

Albany has four weeks to get it right. New York is watching, fingers crossed and breath held.