David vs. the goliaths
David Soares has been Albany County district attorney for 18 years, so he’s obviously got something worth hearing when it comes to reforming New York’s pretrial detention laws. Nevertheless, the legislative powers that be uninvited him from a Jan. 30 joint Senate-Assembly hearing on criminal justice data. Soares then made a stink, saying he got the cold shoulder because he’s loudly opposed the rewritten bail laws for harming the Black and Brown New Yorkers who often wind up victims of crime.
A spokesman for the Senate Democrats over the weekend said that accounting is false — and pointed to the fact that DA Association president J. Anthony Jordan, a Soares associate, still participated in the hearing.
We’re not playing ref in this fight, but will happily say that if anyone in the Legislature thought they could squelch Soares by scrubbing him from the hearing, they were sadly mistaken.
In reaction to the aide’s comments, Soares and DAASNY this week issued a statement saying, “Recent criminal justice reforms have sent the wrong signal to criminals; a green light. The most devastating impact is clearly seen in Black and Brown communities. Victims in these communities are not just data points; they’re people.” The DA has seen the people of his county suffering from violence at elevated levels since passage of the 2019 reforms.
Back in 2019, when the Legislature first reformed pretrial detention, Soares — along with then-Manhattan DA Cy Vance and Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez — urged a different approach. Cash bail should be eliminated altogether, they said, and judges given discretion to order people held when they present a risk of violence. That’s more or less the solid model in place in New Jersey since 2017.
The Legislature ignored them, insisting on stripping judges of all discretion and creating a small list of bail-eligible crimes. The law still needs to be fixed.
They ought to have learned from that experience that it’s unwise to tune out knowledgeable critics. Take the mic away from them, and their voices only get louder.