Albany isn’t in a Staten Island state of mind on crime
Staten Island DA Michael McMahon is rightly blasting Albany for refusing to fix the state’s disastrous criminal-justice laws.
Problem is, the Legislature’s been refusing to listen to anyone in law enforcement — prosecutors, cops or criminal-justice experts (unless they lean hard left) — ever since it started down the “criminal-justice reform” path.
Progressives’ overriding priority is protecting criminals. To hell with prosecutors — and the public.
On Sunday, McMahon called lawmakers’ latest puny tweak (removing the mandate that judges impose the “least restrictive” conditions on defendants freed before trial) a mere “Band-Aid.”
That’s an overstatement.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins refused to lift a finger to plug any of the other huge holes in New York’s “reforms,” and Gov. Kathy Hochul failed to deliver.
“We still have charges that are not bail-eligible,” seethed McMahon.
“The commercial burglar, who’s really terrorizing New York City,” the drug dealer, the person with “a history of violence — they will still not be bail-eligible.”
Specifically, McMahon linked Gotham’s crime surge to “bail reform,” the Raise the Age law and “discovery” rules for sharing criminal evidence, which together removed “accountability from the criminal-justice system.”
Of course, prosecutors, police, judges and others could’ve predicted that would happen.
Did predict, in fact.
Which is exactly why lawmakers refused even to consult with law enforcement back when they passed the reforms.
Heastie & Co. didn’t want to hear about the nightmares they were causing.
Just this year, they refused to let progressive Albany DA David Soares testify, knowing he’d make too strong a case.
Hochul, meanwhile, wants someone else to do the heavy lifting.
When lawmakers balked at even her tiny tweaks on discovery, she folded like a cheap suit, figuring DAs Alvin Bragg (Manhattan), Darcel Clark (The Bronx) and Eric Gonzalez (Brooklyn) could be blamed for not uniting on the specifics.
Actually, the three were desperate for fixes, arguing that “thousands of [criminal] cases have been needlessly dismissed” as a “direct result” of the 2019 discovery law.
Major crimes in the city were up 32% last year over 2019; this year, they’re running 45% higher than two years ago.
New York’s top lawmakers put criminals first.
If voters want to halt crime, they need to gut the Legislature as thoroughly as it gutted the justice system.
