Little or nothing changed bail reform in Albany

0:00 Speaker 1 District Attorney Michael McMahon from study Great Island to Staten Island and so many things are happening. District Attorney Command, What the heck is going on in Aubany. I understand they cut a deal on bail law. Is there going to be enough to keep New York as safe?

0:21 Speaker 2 You know, John, We don’t think so. We’re certainly, you know, glad that they did something, and they remove what’s known as the least restrictive non monetary condition on the judges, so when they do have someone who was bail eligible, they can set monetary bail on them, right, So that is a substantive change. That would be a little that’s

0:44 a little bit better. But we we’re just worried that this is a band aid on a on a on a gaping wound, you know, because you still have charges that are not bail eligible. So the commercial burglar who’s really terrorizing New York City now, or the drug dealer, uh, or the person who has a gun history of history

1:02 of violence, has a history of violating orders of protection, they will still not be bail eligible. So it’s an incremental change, but it’s clearly not enough because we see the changes from all many over the last few years of the laws, it’s so called bail reform, raise the age discovery has taken away accountability from the criminal justice system.

1:24 And we see what happens. Crime is up and this is a problem that concerns us greatly.

1:32 Speaker 1 Is there anything else the people can do? I know New Yorkers, Staten Island, the Manhattan, Brooklyn or New Yorkers are scared to go out at night. A lot of the restaurants are closing up at Nikers. People are not going.

1:49 They’re scared to take the match transit, especially in the other boroughs where there’s subway is underground. What can these people do? I mean, they’re not voting to Monday or two. What do you think they say? At least call their local assembly person or state senator.

2:06 Speaker 2 They certainly should, John, because it’s the state senators and the assembly people who are not listening to the voice of the people. Listen, New Yorkers. All people want to be safe. The primary contract between government and the people is that the government will do everything they can to keep them safe. And right now it’s not going on.

2:26 And what we see now is, you know, we’ve been actually over the last year We’ve done a pretty good job of getting murders and gun violence down a little bit, but the burglaries, the robberies, the assaults, the aggressive panhandling, these the homelessness, these issues are on the rise because the laws that they passed over the last few years

2:50 have really taken away a lot of the tools that the police and the prosecutors had. And listen to the police and my adas. We are dedicated to keeping the people of Staten Island safe, but it’s difficult when we arrest someone and they’re given the dat disk appearance, take it like a summons to come back in twenty days,

3:08 and they’re back on the street, even though you know they may have even committed a low level assault. In some cases that’s possible, and if not, they’re certainly out the next day. And so we need to, you know, raise our voices to our legislators and say, hey, you guys, have you created this mess? You know, in twenty nineteen,

3:26 crime was at an all time low in New York City. Staten Island was and continues to be the safest, the borrow and safest community in the country of its size, but numbers are up and when what they did just made it so difficult for law enforcement to keep the people safe. Another example is the discovery law.

3:46 Speaker 1 Right.

3:46 Speaker 2 The part of this package is that they gained the system the defence bar legal aid and convince the legislators to make the discovery the exchange of information for the prosecutors so difficult and so unrelated to what’s relevant to make it really a great distraction show. So cases are being dismissed in the other counties because the prosecutors can’t

4:11 keep up with getting the information because they tied it into what’s called speedy trial or thirty thirty, and they’re being dismissed because of that. We thought we had a deal up in Albany to fix that, to make it a little bit better, and at the last minute, at the behest of the defenders, the legislature carved out some

4:30 exceptions for them that would actually make the system worse. So you may have seen yesterday myself and the other four citywide city das came out against it and pulled it back because they actually muddied it up and made it worse. And so instead of trying to make things better in many ways, they’re making it worse. And I

4:49 think that We have to call out the individual legislators who are doing this and say, look, people in this district Assembly or senatorial district, you’re elected a official does not have the people’s interests at heart. They’re listening to the social media waves and the twitters and the agendas and not taking care of the people.

5:12 Speaker 1 Well, that’s what I said to all the state legislators. And I said to a Governor Huckle last week when I was with her, I said, whose side are the legislators? Arens twenty million New Yorkers that love New York or three thousand violent criminals that can continuously hurt our citizens? Right?

5:32 Speaker 2 That’s right. You know, we have a guy now that we like him for about you know, a dozen commercial burglaries. He’s terrorizing the small businesses on Staten Island. He takes a rock, he smashes the window, he goes in, he burgls right, shuts the business down for a day, scares away customers for months. Right when we finally put the

5:54 grabis on that guy, we arrest him, we will not be able to ask for bail because commercial burglary is not bail eligible offense. So whose side are they on? Are they on? The side of the business owners and the people who want to go to the restaurant or that when individual that’s really terrorizing the businesses across this borough.

6:14 Speaker 1 Bas Trick attorney Michael McMahon, you said it right, You said it exactly right, and I cry for our city, I cry for our state, and let’s pray before the vote comes on. I’m going to call Governor Hoku myself and tell us you better hang tough.

6:31 Speaker 2 And at least fix that discovery law because you know, in other boroughs the cases of being dismissed and we’re all losing ada’s and staff because the burden is so onerous and so ridiculous, really defives common sense that people were the attritionan. You know, I’ve lost one in four prosecutors over the last five years because the burden is

6:54 too much. It makes no sense, and they can be held accountable if they make one little mistake. It should be a matter of due diligence and good faith efforts. What the law was before they changed it. And they’ve made the life of the prosecutor and the police very very difficult and the city less safe. So John, I

7:11 certainly hope they listen to us.

7:14 Speaker 1 Thank you. Very much. D d A. Mike McMahon, Staten Island and like I said, again, pray for our city and we’ll catch up with you again real soon.

7:23 Speaker 2 Looking forward to it, and go Ferry Hawks.

7:25 Speaker 1 Go Fery Hawks. Thank you,