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NY Democrats Retreat on New Bail Reform Policy After National Criticism, Community Outrage

NY Democrats Retreat on New Bail Reform Policy After National Criticism, Community Outrage

Prompted by a wave of bad press and public outcry, Gov. Cuomo, NYC Mayor de Blasio, and other Democratic leaders now look to change a new reform bill that has proved to be a national embarrassment for the entire state

https://youtu.be/RcEOPVyxv8c

One week after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) made declaring war on $30 Domino’s pizzas his first priority of the new year, he finally got back to the priorities that matter more to New Yorkers.

So, too, has New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).

It took community backlash, national ridicule, and alleged criminals being released over and over again even before the law went into effect for both Cuomo and de Blasio to learn that the state’s new bail reform policy is terrible news for law-abiding citizens and good news for repeat offenders.

In separate remarks given during recent public appearances, two of New York’s most well-known Democrats have indicated they want changes made and that the state legislature needs to act.

A massive march against hate, the terrifying rise of anti-Semitic attacks, and the specter of the perpetrators of the attacks released without bail to strike again are all factors apparently forcing Cuomo to open the door to reforming the state’s new criminal justice reform laws.

“We’re going too work on it because there are consequences we have to adjust for,” Cuomo said.

The governor told a group of the city’s movers and shakers at the Association for a Better New York that he will work with the Legislature to revamp the law.

[…]

“There’s no doubt this is still a work in progress, and there are other changes that have to be made,” Cuomo said.

Interestingly enough, however, Cuomo left out any mention of the bail reform law in his state of the state address Wednesday, which angered some Democratic state lawmakers eager for change.

The New York Post reported that Mayor de Blasio himself stepped in on one high profile case to make sure alleged anti-Semite and repeat offender Tiffany Harris wasn’t released onto the streets a third time in less than two weeks:

Mayor Bill de Blasio intervened in the prosecution of an accused anti-Semitic attacker — leading to her lock-up in a psych ward — because she was generating negative publicity for his administration, The Post has learned.

Brooklyn’s supervising judge was forced to hold an unscheduled hearing late on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve after City Hall contacted the state Office of Court Administration about Tiffany Harris, 30.

Harris’ repeated release from custody after back-to-back arrests late last month — including for allegedly slapping three Orthodox Jewish women and shouting “F-U, Jews!” on Dec. 27 — had made her a symbol of revolving-door justice amid the state’s new bail reform law and de Blasio’s gift programs for newly released jail inmates.

The mayor has signaled that he, too, is on board with revising the new bail reform policy. It’s unclear, however, if his demand for change includes revisiting his own policy regarding department store/restaurant gift cards, Mets tickets, and cell phones being offered to entice accused criminals to show up for their scheduled court dates.

Prosecutors, judges, the law enforcement community and local officials in cities across the state all made it clear for months they weren’t happy with the law, which Cuomo touted on his website back in March:

Criminal Justice Reform: New York continues its commitment to a fairer criminal justice system with the inclusion of the following reforms in the FY 2020 Enacted Budget:

Reforming Bail and Pretrial Detention Reform: As part of a groundbreaking plan to modernize New York’s bail system, cash bail will be eliminated for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies, alongside a new requirement that police officers must issue desk appearance tickets to most people charged with misdemeanors and Class E felonies, rather than making a custodial arrest. Together, these reforms will ensure approximately 90 percent of people charged, but not yet convicted of a crime, are not sitting in jail awaiting trial solely because they do not have the economic resources to meet bail.

There’s also another troubling part of the criminal justice reform package that hasn’t received much press:

Revisions in discovery procedure mean that defendants now free on no-bail will be told where key witnesses against them live; it takes little imagination to see where that will lead: Look for witness shortages, one way or another.

Cuomo said in his announcement that “the legislation will ensure that victims and witnesses are protected from intimidation and other forms of coercion” during the discovery process. Still, NYPD’s deputy counterterrorism chief John Miller didn’t sound so sure when he discussed the reforms over the summer:

Miller also criticized the reform’s change to the trial discovery process. Three weeks after an arrest, prosecutors would be required to hand over all evidence, including victim and witness information, which Miller believes would put them at risk.

With Cuomo, de Blasio, and Democratic leaders in the state legislature—including Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins—now stating they are on board with changes being made to the bill, look for them to happen.  But as to how soon is anyone’s guess.

In the meantime, because these same Democrats didn’t listen when community leaders, law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and Republicans were raising the roof about the changes, alleged criminals will still be let off the hook and free to commit crimes again.

If only Democrats had actually listened. If only.

— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —

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Comments

Just as Democrats are convinced that Trump somehow forced the Iranians to shoot down a commercial airliner, I fully expect NY Democrats to blame Trump for making them ram this wackadoodle legislation through the state legislature.

Democrats would not push for these policies if they had to suffer the consequences themselves.

    DirtyRich in reply to pst314. | January 10, 2020 at 6:08 am

    That’s why they’re talking about walking back the law. Democrats (the voters) are being affected by it, especially the Jewish community in NYC with a few high profile cases.

I sure hope they retreat. We have a trip to New York planned in a few months, and I have been wondering whether to cancel it. NYC fought a long, tough battle to make that city safer, and it boggles my mind that they seem to want to undo the progress they have made.

I won’t even start on San Francisco, which just installed a radical district attorney. We left (escaped from) Seattle to an undisclosed secure rural location in WA State; since we’ve left, the city has gone full nutso. People tell me that the police don’t even bother to investigate property crimes because the city attorney won’t prosecute.

Seattle is now feeling the effects, and it will get much worse. Same goes for Portland, Oregon, which is rapidly declining. Unreal.

^ I didn’t write that out of country paranoia about big cities. I lived in D.C. for 5 years and Boston for 11 years, and on account of my finance profession was in NYC a lot.

When we traveled there five or six years ago, it took a lot of convincing to get my other half to ride the subways. From what I’ve been reading just lately, I’m not sure I’ll want to take them when we visit.

Not only that, but I did some research and NY bans just about every non-lethal self-defense tool available. God help you if you carry, for example, a can of pepper spray. Your attacker will be out on (no) bail, and because you have money and are white, they’ll go after you with their claws out.

Will they go all the way back to the 1970s, when it was common for people to be mugged while waiting in line for a Broadway show? (That happened to two friends of mine back then.) It really stuns me that New York wants to return to those days.

    Subotai Bahadur in reply to RandomCrank. | January 9, 2020 at 9:50 pm

    To be honest, no one with any regard for their own safety or for the rule of law should visit New York [City and State], Frisco [colloquialism on purpose to annoy the natives there], or Seattle. We need to make choices based at least in part on safety and not supporting that which hates us. Make them support themselves without our cash.

    Subotai Bahadur

      RandomCrank in reply to Subotai Bahadur. | January 9, 2020 at 10:27 pm

      You might be correct. But keep in mind that this would be the 40th anniversary of the first time I visited New York. Say what you will, but I have a pretty deep attachment to that city. It’s not easy, to put it mildly, to abandon it. I hope that their leaders, such as they are, will change this.

      I know, I know. I’m supposed to be a fire-breathing dragon, but I find it hard to go there. I have talked to people who do business in San Francisco, and as a result I have crossed it off the list for who knows how long. I do not want to cross New York off the list.

      Seattle is a long drive, and for all kinds of reasons I’ve never looked back. But we do need to go to Portland for medical and other services. In any case, I don’t like to just write places off in this country.

      DirtyRich in reply to Subotai Bahadur. | January 10, 2020 at 6:10 am

      NY is safe outside the cities, where the local governments effectively operate under “shall issue” for gun permits.

        RandomCrank in reply to DirtyRich. | January 10, 2020 at 1:47 pm

        Our trip to NY this time will be the standard tourist jaunt to midtown Manhattan. I’ve been upstate several times when I lived in the East. A well-kept travel secret. Very beautiful.

        Depends on where you live – larger communities run by Dems – not so much. Long time resident in Syracuse and vicinity, city itself is a Dem stronghold. It made the news few years back about a local judge (member of one of the ruling political family dynasties) who was well known as anti- gun. Wouldn’t issue carry permits. Even turned down a bodega owner who had been repeatedly robbed “because guns are dangerous”.

        When he received death threats (for cases unrelated to issuing gun permits) he both got him an armed escort AND a carry permit, because apparently some 4 legs are better than other 4 legs.

    Sonnys Mom in reply to RandomCrank. | January 11, 2020 at 2:22 pm

    Boston (Suffolk County) now has it’s very own own crackpot leftist DA, one Rachael Rollins. Already shoplifters in neighboring counties are claiming they thought store theft was legal now. And xcept for conservative talk radio and media, not a peep from the residents.

You will believe this about cuomo, he’s an asssshole.

Andrew Cuomo’s poster representing the state of NY state
https://twitter.com/NickReisman/status/1215369392034369536/photo/1

Gee. If only someone could have predicted that not arresting or quickly releasing criminals when said criminals are caught committing crimes might lead to problems.

you might not have an ‘official’ law but the judges and others will do the same thing, the problem is like CA the democrats control the bulk of the voters, I doubt that too many of the democrat voters know who they are voting for, there is a high probably that most of them don’t even know they voted.

Take this one stupid, really stupid law, multiply that by 100 and that’s what we will get with a Warren, Sanders, Bloomberg, Biden, Butboy, and Styer. They all KNOW what’s best for us and by God, they will impose their wills on all of us.

The left is trying to sow social chaos, and step in to ‘rescue’ us, enslaving us in the process.

This whole ‘bail’ thing is a problem, because like obama and clinton, they revealed too much of their true intent too fast.

Nothing ‘stupid’ here on de blasio and cuomo’s part, other than moving too fast on a very evil agenda. NEW YORKERS are stupid for tolerating the likes of these two scummy people holding high office.

I’d make war on $30 pizzas too. They shouldn’t go over $15 loaded.

Criminal justice reform cannot mean letting crooks go. There are things that can be done, but not wholesale release. The Dems/Progs want to kiss up to one of their constituent groups.

Jews voted for Gov Fredo Mayor Kaiser Bill and resultant de policing policies 90% and now don’t like the results when they are effected.

Thus the ever popular who knew.

The really important part of this story is how today’s Democrats are so steeped in their perverted ideology that they are routinely passing laws that no only will fail, but whose failure is easily predicted just as those predictions are ignored. There is this law on bond or the lack thereof, laws in California and elsewhere decriminalizing thefts below $1000 which has lead to a huge upswing in petty thefts at businesses, laws granting homeless people all sorts of perks resulting in huge increases in the homeless population, laws providing free needles to addicts that has led to used needles littering the streets, laws forcing housing prices in California to skyrocket thus leading to more homelessness, tax increases in the extreme that have cause upper income citizens to flee to lower tax states, etc.
>
What is amazing is how these legislators seem incapable of realizing their mistake because their ideology blinds them to the obvious. One only needs to look towards the impeachment debacle by the Democrats to prove this. Meanwhile we have the idiotic gun laws of New York and Virginia resulting in a wholesale refusal by the population to obey the law along with a host of other legislative nightmares continue to be passed throughout the country.
>
Is it any wonder why so many Democrat controlled states and cities are disaster areas? The real question that begs to be answered is why so many Americans continue to support these easily predictable serial failure at the ballot box.

    Fredlike in reply to Cleetus. | January 10, 2020 at 7:14 am

    VA does not have too many stupid gun laws yet, but with an all dem government now, we are expecting quite a few this year. There are some gun friendly dems in the Senate, hopefully they will stop the worst of the bills, but I expect a good number to get through. So far the cities and counties are saying they will not enforce unconstitutional laws, mostly it tells the dems if you go too far expect an energized opposition in two years. There have been a few sheriffs saying they will deputize large numbers of residents so they get the exceptions allowed to law enforcement now.

      The Friendly Grizzly in reply to Fredlike. | January 10, 2020 at 9:42 am

      The general public needs to be educated on jury nullification. That way, the ones brought to trial can walk because the juries refused to convict.

The Facebook page Repeal Bail Reform created by the Washington County Sheriff has compiled newspaper stories of some of the defendants released on bail reform, including bank robbers, drug dealers, baby killers, DWI killers, Peeping Toms, DV offenders, sex offenders, etc.–all released without having to post bail. The Sheriff started his Facebook page on Saturday, January 4th. The group now has 90,000 members and is growing. Visit Repeal Bail Reform for some interesting stories about what is really happening. It is not fear-mongering. It is actually stories.

Not because these Dummycrats realized what a moronic idea it is,but “Prompted by a wave of bad press and public outcry, Gov. Cuomo, NYC Mayor de Blasio, and other Democratic leaders now look to change a new reform bill that has proved to be a national embarrassment for the entire state”.Can you say, “Idiots”? I knew you could.

This has been the vile Dhimmi-crats’ way since time immemorial — coddling criminals and enabling recidivism, while giving the middle finger to crime victims, and, while evincing total indifference towards promoting public safety.