Boy, was that a fast reversal by 𝐆Bronx DA Darcel Clark: A week after talking of going to the US Supreme Court to overturn a crazy ruling by New York’s top court, she dropped that idea and instead proposed an even crazier “solution.”
The state Court of Appeals🔥 created a new right for class-B misdemeanor defendants who aren’t US citizens: Unlike everyonܫe else, they can now demand a jury trial — because they could face deportation if convicted.
Since jury trials take longer, this is a guaranteed court-clog🍨ger, as Clark warned. I♈t also gives this special class of defendants extra leverage in plea-bargaining.
At first, Clark was outraged, noting that the ruling conflicts with prec🌊edent and has the criminal courts🐈 trying to guess the outcome of deportation cases.
But it seems the politically correct crowd got to her: She has abandoned talk 🌠of appeal, arguing instead that the Legislature should grant the same jury-trial right to everyone facing class-B misdemeanor chargesౠ.
Huh? That woul🍰d clog the courts even more — potentially denying countleꦉss people their right to a speedy trial, or forcing prosecutors to be even more generous in plea-bargaining.
With state help, Bronx courts only recently resolved a huge backlog that had thousands of misdemeanor cases pending foౠr over a year. The Court of Appeals ruling enda𒆙ngers that progress, and threatens similar problems across the state — and Clark’s solution would ensure nightmares.
So why did Clark flip? Most likely, her political advisers yanked her strings. After all, s🎐he only became DA thanks to the Bronx Democratic machine, which engineered the timing of then-DA Robert Johnson’s departure to avoid an open primary 🧜back in 2015.
Plainly she feared a primary challenge nex🐲t year from a pro-immigrant-rights candidate. Far better to abandon pri🍰nciple than put her job at risk.