Though New Yorker politicians think about themselves the nationwide chief in civil rights, New York nonetheless ranks third within the nation for wrongful convictions — and New York Metropolis has the third-highest variety of exonerations nationwide. Every case represents a life derailed: households damaged, years stolen, careers destroyed, childhoods lived and not using a mum or dad.
Behind many of those injustices is a well-recognized offender: law-enforcement misconduct. Officers with lengthy, documented histories of dishonesty or abuse — the identical patterns uncovered by NYS AG Letitia James — stay on the job, biking harmless folks like me into the criminal-justice system. As reported in Black Westchester Journal, I’ve been one among far too many New Yorkers the place “official police misconduct was acknowledged, yet no mandatory case review followed. For defendants who are unjustly arrested, this lack of follow-through is not a technical oversight; it is a civil-rights failure.”
Fixing a ‘Loophole’ on the Legislation Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Workplace
In 2022, the Lawyer Basic’s Legislation Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Workplace (LEMIO) started naming what police companies refused to: Sample Misconduct Officers whose repeated violations make each case they contact suspect. LEMIO’s mandate is robust on paper, however structurally flawed. It could possibly examine and suggest reforms — however can not require motion. Suggestions don’t overturn convictions, compel prosecutors to evaluate tainted instances, or free the harmless.
This imbalance was underscored when a choose just lately dismissed the Lawyer Basic’s indictment in a high-profile police-misconduct case. No matter one thinks of the specifics, it highlights a broader reality: we will’t declare justice whereas ignoring officers with documented histories of injustice.
Right now, even when the state flags an officer as a serial abuser of energy, District Attorneys don’t have any authorized obligation to revisit the instances that officer dealt with. Somebody can sit in jail for all times even when the arresting officer has a protracted sample of misconduct. Some DAs evaluate instances — many don’t. That is private to me: as a disabled New Yorker, I now face 45 days in jail regardless of my arresting officer having 25 misconduct complaints relationship again to 2008.
Worse, LEMIO’s findings solely cowl two years of misconduct. Folks prosecuted a decade in the past by the identical officers don’t have any pathway to obligatory evaluate until they will afford years of litigation. Justice shouldn’t have a two-year expiration date.
The Commonsense Repair – Obtainable at Protectnewyorkers.com
Albany can repair this with a commonsense modification, and that’s why I teamed up with consultants to draft one. The widespread sense resolution is on the market at protectnewyorkers.com, which I encourage you go to and signal the petition in assist (it could amend The Legislation Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Workplace Act, which is New York’s Govt Legislation Part 75.)
The options, as soon as sponsored and enacted within the State Legislature, will shield all New Yorkers: When an officer is designated a Sample Misconduct Officer, each district lawyer ought to be required to evaluate associated convictions or open instances inside 60 days and difficulty a public dedication. Anybody at the moment on trial ought to obtain a assured bail listening to inside 30 days.
For the primary time, prosecutors could be obligated to behave when the state itself deems an officer unreliable. That’s not radical — it’s primary public security. Nobody ought to lose years as a result of a DA seems to be away. Nobody ought to stay behind bars as a result of misconduct findings are non-obligatory.
If New York needs to stay a beacon of justice, we’d like enforceable legal guidelines, not rhetoric. Albany has a uncommon bipartisan likelihood to restore a failing construction and be certain that tainted instances obtain quick, obligatory evaluate. Misconduct flagged by the Lawyer Basic can’t be allowed to vanish into bureaucratic silence.
Accountability can’t be non-obligatory — not for defendants, prosecutors, or officers whose misconduct destroys lives. New Yorkers deserve a justice system the place everyone seems to be held accountable.
In regards to the writer: Marc Fishman is a disability-rights advocate and Bronx-based father of 4.
