We don’t want people to be in jail who can’t afford bail.”ĭefense attorneys, on the other hand, have an overwhelmingly positive view of the reforms, though specifically the discovery reforms, saying that it has produced far more fair outcomes in the criminal justice system. “We don’t want that financial disparity to be affecting the community. We’d never want to recommend bail for someone for a non-violent offense, where someone who was charged with a similar offense with financial resources can just post bail,” Van Houten said.

“Our philosophy about bail has gone back to the beginning of my first term, which is we don’t want anybody in jail. It’s a flexible policy position, but one that he has touted for years and has resulted in lower and lower incarceration numbers in the Tompkins County Jail since he took over. Van Houten has maintained since 2017 that his office’s policy for bail is not to seek it unless they believe the person’s release could put the community at danger. It’s one of those buzz issues that everybody blames for everything that they’re not happy about.” “It’s a convoluted and complicated issue. “There’s a lot of propagandizing going on by various groups who are members or stakeholders in the justice system,” Van Houten said.

Entities like police unions have spoken out against bail reform constantly, even condemning Hochul’s recently announced modifications of the reforms - meanwhile, advocates for those in the criminal justice system say the modifications, which make more gun charges bail eligible ( among other tweaks reported by Gothamist) and relax some discovery reforms from 2019, will needlessly and unfairly leave more people behind bars for longer before their trials. The issue has been politicized since the beginning, and continues to be now. (Data and chart from the New York State Office of Court Administration) A flowchart showing the number of arraignments in Ithaca City Court, and the outcomes for cases of people who did not have bail set before their trial. There were 24 non-violent felonies, but just nine violent felonies, the type of which is shown below. Of those cases, 419 did not have another arrest (and 130 of the records are blank), while 64 received misdemeanors while they were out. But I don’t think any of the violent crime that has happened recently is attributable in any way to bail reform.”ĭata culled from the state’s Office of Court Administration website shows that of 652 arraignments held in Ithaca City Court since the reforms took place in 2020, 646 of them did not have bail set. Sometimes it’s predictable, sometimes it isn’t. “Violent crime is always cyclical, it happens for many reasons. “I don’t believe that there’s a connection between any violent crime and the bail reform laws,” Van Houten said. He also noted that he would have liked District Attorneys around the state to be more involved in the initial formulation of the reforms. He supported them when they were first introduced, though he noted that the reforms would potentially make prosecutions more difficult because of the changes to evidence-gathering timetables-part of the larger discovery reforms that brought New York more in line with the rest of the country after previously having some fairly slanted rules for discovery, in the minds of defense attorneys at least. In Tompkins County, District Attorney Matt Van Houten has generally been a supporter of the reforms.

His objections have been bolstered by a few headline-grabbing tragedies perpetrated by people who could have still been detained under previous bail laws.

Kathy Hochul and her administration have been mulling changes to the law regardless, fueled in part by the election of NYC Mayor Eric Adams, who has been a vocal opponent of the reforms. Its main thrust was to reduce the number of people who would remain behind bars because they couldn’t afford to pay bail and get themselves out by making many non-violent felonies and misdemeanors ineligible for bail. TOMPKINS COUNTY, N.Y.-New York State’s bail reform laws were certainly controversial when they were approved in 2019 and implemented in 2020, with criminal justice advocates celebrating their implementation as a win for civil rights for those accused but not yet convicted of crimes.

Bail ithaca voice