Kathy Hochul expands bail budget battle against NY Legislature with proposed discovery changes

ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul is backing changes to criminal discovery laws via the state budget process at the behest of New York City district attorneys who blame progr♒💟essive reforms for a surge in dropped cases, sources say.

This legislative offensive has created another front in a budget battle against fellow Democrats in the sta🍷te Senate and Assembly who are resisting changes to cash bail laws in negotiations that have stretched twelve days past an April 1 deadline.

“She had been taking the position that she was going to go to the mat for bail and she’d support discovery [changes] but the Legislature had to put it on the table,” a source familiar with budget talks told The Post.

But Asse🐟mbly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) did not bring the matter up, the source 🌟added, spurring Hochul to float changes last Tuesday.

Current discov🎐ery laws approved in 2019 require prosecutors to turn over evidence to defendants within 20 or 35 days after arraignment, depending on whether that person is being held ahead of their trial.

Prosecutors say defense attorneys have leveraged discovery laws as part of delay tactics aimed at getting defendants freed after purportedly being denied the “speedy trial” required by state law.

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Dropped cases rose within the five boroughs from 44% in 2019 to 69% by mid-October 2021 with prosecutors’ time often taken up by processing documents that are not relevant to a case but still required by current law, according to a January report by the Manhattan Institute.

“The District Attorneys Association of the State of New York has long advocated for additional changes to the current discovery law to help address the difficulty in obtaining voluminous and oftentimes duplicative materials from agencies in actual possession of information,” J. Anthony Jordan, president of the group and Washington County district attorney, said.

“That difficulty results in cases dismissed despite the due diligence of prosecutors,” he added.

Hochul has floated three changes to discovery laws to change the🧸 status quo.

• Gives judges more leeway to decide whether alleged discovery violations by prosecutors ought to result in a dismissal. 
• Require the defense to challenge a prosecutor’s compliance with discovery laws within 35 days unless a court agrees to an extension.
• Give DAs the green light to continue cases if they turn over all “relevant” material to the defense rather than all material “related” to a case as required by current law.

Those ideas are broadly aimed at the same goal as a that would break the discovery process into three parts in order to give prosecutors more time to process evidence without running afoul of “speedy trial” reforms also approved in 2019.

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The second proposal – first – of the three appears to be the one most l🅺ikely to get support from Heastie and Stewart-Cousins, sources say, th🍒ough negotiations remain fluid.

Another source said at one point last week Hochuܫl only brought two discovery changes to the table.

Reps for the legislative leaders did no🐭t provide comment Wednesd༺ay.

Hochul did not deny that discovery changes w♈ere on the table when asked point-blank by 🃏The Post on Thursday – two days after her reported push began.

Left-leaning groups launched new a꧂ttacks on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to block discovery changes.

At least five criminal defender groups unleashed their own media barrage against Hochul and her “betrayal” of progressive reforms.

“Now, Governor Hochul and local District Attorneys have proposed language that would essentially overturn this critical reform and return New York to a time when crucial evidence was withheld from the defense and our clients languished on Rikers Island for years,” The Legal Aid Society said in a

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“This 11th-hour ploy to gut one of the most transformative reforms Albany has codified in recent memory is a sham,” the group added.

Defender groups have also been miffeꦅd that Hochul has backed millions more to help DAs comply with discovery requirem꧃ents.

“Governor Hochul allocated an additional $40 million in funding for prosecutors statewide to comply with the discovery laws, but provided zero for defenders despite this shared need,” Brooklyn Defenders said in a Wednesday.

Progressives have similarly attacked the embattled governor over proposals they say would effectively mean the end of cash bail in New York solely being used to ensure 🍌a defendant shows up in court.

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But Hochul has stood her ground by arguing that eliminating the legal requirement that defendants get the “least restrictive” conditions ahead of their trials would give judges much-needed clarity to remand potentially dangerous people or those who might get accused of additional crimes while out on the streets.

Some political watchers have urged the relatively centrist governor to “go Dark Kathy” on legislators by deploying gubernatorial powers to the ♓max – but her current approach appears on the brink of succeeding.

The three sides are inc𒅌hing towards a deal ๊on bail in hopes of breaking a stalemate that has held up serious budget talks on touchy topics like expanding charter schools, funding the MTA, and increasing taxes on the wealthy.

“We’re very close to a general agreement,” Stewart-Cousins told reporters on Tuesday about the status of bail talks.

Heastie said the day before, however, that “nothing” was settled on the matter.

“I think that what the governor has tried to do, and what we certainly don’t mind doing is making sure that people understand and judges understand that they have a discretion if there is some confusion about that,” she added.

It remains unclear the extent to which progress on bail and discovery might be intertwined in negotiations, but p🎉rosecutors said Wednesday they welcome a gubernatorial push to give them more time to process evidence and turn it over to criminal defendants.

“I hope our lawmakers consider meaningful changes to address New York State’s discovery law that addresses the time constraints that prosecutors throughout the state experience while also ensuring that defendants are provided with the materials needed to defend charges against them,” Jordan said.

Additional reporting by Bernadette Hogan