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Criminal justice reform now: public defenders

ALBANY — With the Democrats set to completely control state government beginning in January, five New York City public defender groups are calling on state leaders to push through long-stalled criminal justice reforms — including requiring the NYPD to release officer disciplinary records.

“With the landscape changing in Albany next year, the time for meaningful reform has finally come,” the groups wrote in a letter to Gov. Cuomo (photo), Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Yonkers Democrat set to become the chamber’s majority leader in January. “Impacted communities and the greater public — your constituents — recognize the profound injustices that Albany has permitted to exist for decades, while other states have taken action to help fix the problems.”

Signing the letter were the heads of the Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services, the Bronx Defenders, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and New York County Defender Services.

In addition to revising the decades old 50-a Civil Service law that prohibits the release of NYPD officer disciplinary records, the public defender groups also are pushing bail, speedy trial and discovery reforms.

They also are calling for passage of legislation that cleared the Assembly to end solitary confinement beyond 15 days. They want bills to ensure inmates have a “fair and meaningful opportunity for parole release” for those at least 55 years old who have served at least 15 years of their sentences and to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation for misdemeanors.

They also are calling on the Legislature to act to require judicial warrants for any courthouse arrests done by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, expand visiting opportunities in state prisons, restore free bus service for those visiting inmates, and legalize marijuana and vacate the records of those who have been busted previously for pot.

Many of the initiatives were routinely blocked in the Republican-controlled state Senate, which the Democrats grabbed control of for the first time in a decade in last week’s elections. Cuomo is a Democrat and the party also controls the Assembly.

Cuomo and the legislative Democrats have said criminal justice reforms will be a priority in 2019.