Albany to Crime Victims: We Don’t Care

The New York Legislature is neglecting the needs of domestic violence survivors.

This disregard was made clear last week when both the Senate and Assembly failed to include any changes to New York’s problematic discovery law in their budget proposals.

The 2020 discovery law has imposed an unprecedented and unnecessary compliance burden on prosecutors nationwide, creating an imbalance that favors criminals over victims.

The statute outlines the specific types of evidence (known as “discovery” material) that assistant district attorneys must gather, analyze, and share with defense attorneys within very tight deadlines. Failing to meet these requirements can result in the dismissal of their cases.

Worse yet for victims, “evidence” is now defined so broadly that it encompasses anything vaguely related to a case—even if it bears no relevance or is simply redundant.

This has led to a dramatic increase in case dismissals, as defense attorneys exploit every tiny oversight to challenge the prosecution.

This situation has deprived justice from tens of thousands of victims of crime.

Before this law was enacted in 2019, only 5% of cases in New York City criminal court were dismissed due to compliance issues.

Now, this compliance threshold is often impossible to meet; data from last year indicates that dismissals have surged by a staggering 455%.

In fact, around 50,000 cases—nearly one third of the total—were voided because defense attorneys successfully argued that prosecutors failed to meet the excessive compliance standards.

This has had catastrophic repercussions for domestic violence victims, whose cases are particularly susceptible to these absurd dismissals.

Prosecutors, overwhelmed with the hunt for unnecessary “evidence,” are now opting not to prosecute 26% more domestic violence arrests compared to 2019.

Consider this: a distressing two out of five domestic violence victims in NYC now find their cases either dismissed or declined.

One such victim is Maya Calver (name changed for privacy).

In recent weeks, the irrationalities of the law forced Maya into a situation of greater danger and instability when her abuser, Mark Davis, had his case dismissed for an outrageous reason.

Davis, Maya’s live-in boyfriend, had a documented history of assaults against her, with police intervening multiple times over the past year.

He was finally arrested in August after he forcibly stripped her in public and assaulted her. Numerous charges were brought against him, backed by substantial evidence of his guilt.

Manhattan prosecutors promptly provided Davis’ attorneys with all required evidence under the stringent law, including ten body-worn camera recordings from the arrest, complete with associated metadata audit trails.

They also compiled hundreds of items from 70 evidence categories: police reports, witness statements, court documents, scans, checklists, logs, notes, receipts, photos, emails, voicemails, and more.

The prosecutors even shared the disciplinary records of the officers involved in Davis’ arrest.

However, they initially overlooked a minor citation from a past incident where a prisoner briefly escaped while being escorted by one of these officers to a water fountain.

The prisoner was caught again within seconds. The only reason this incident was documented was due to NYPD’s rigorous reporting standards.

Nonetheless, Davis’ defense team seized the opportunity. They argued that the prosecution had failed to present these inconsequential documents before the discovery law’s deadline. (The testimony of the officer involved was unnecessary.)

Because this law prioritizes compliance over justice, the case was dismissed entirely: Maya’s abuser is now free.

Moreover, this dismissal prevented Maya from obtaining an order of protection against Davis, who continues to threaten her.

Feeling betrayed by the very system meant to protect her, Maya has had to leave her home.

There are likely thousands of victims like Maya across NYC, and this number continues to rise.

In 2019, before the discovery law’s implementation, the city recorded almost 12,000 misdemeanor convictions. In the subsequent four years, that average has dropped to just over 3,000 convictions annually.

This means only a quarter of victims are now able to receive the justice that was once standard.

Governor Kathy Hochul has proposed an amendment to the law, which would require defense attorneys to prove that any overlooked “evidence” could genuinely impact the case’s outcome for it to lead to a dismissal.

If this amendment were in place, Mark Davis would have faced consequences for his horrific actions against Maya.

During recent budget discussions, “progressive” legislators and advocates have claimed that since dismissal rates for serious felonies—such as murders or shootings—have not spiked under this discovery law, there is no problem.

Their eagerness to favor criminals over victims shows a shocking disregard for the safety of vulnerable women.

No other state in the country would have denied Maya her chance for justice in court.

It is imperative that New York’s Legislature abandon its self-satisfied and anti-prosecutor stance and implement Hochul’s amendment before the upcoming April 1 budget deadline. Until then, our lawmakers should feel ashamed.

Hannah E. Meyers is a policy expert in policing and public safety, and a former senior counterterrorism analyst for the New York Police Department.