Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Brolic_Broccoli t1_jb26w64 wrote

Reply to comment by jvspino in Woman Followed Into Manhattan Building, Dragged Out of Elevator in Late-Night Rape: Cops by NetQuarterLatte

As an attorney that practices in this field, it sounds reasonable at first right? The reality is that it's impossible to do this on every single case when you have 130+ cases and the turn around is 90 days on misdeamanors. If you're past 90 days the case is dismissed by law regardless of the merits. Meaning even if you have a cooperative victim, the defendant is caught on video, and he admits to doing it, the law states that the case must be dismissed.

Generally what's missing when a case is dismissed? Let's talk about a domestic violence assault case. It's not the paperwork work that you need like an arrest report surveillance notes, or even anything that's remotely helpful to the defense etc case. You have all of the responding and arresting officers information, reports and body camera already.

It's generally paperwork like 20th cop that arrived at the scene that didn't see anything and didn't arrest anyone yet you need his automatically generated memo book with the only entry being the time he began his shift.

If you don't have that, the case is dismissed, the order of protection is dismissed and the abuser is free to contact and abuse their victim again and the cycle of domestic violence continues.

53

jvspino t1_jb2g3br wrote

I appreciate your perspective on the matter. It seems like there's opportunities to specify how and when these should be taken into account because I agree situations like the domestic violence one you discussed shouldn't be dropped. However, I'd hesitate to throw out the baby with the bathwater here - accountability and transparency are important in the justice system. Maybe I'm naively optimistic, but I'd really hope we can improve the system so that it's reasonably efficient but still gives people a fair shot at defending themselves. I don't think the solution should be fully rolling back these changes, as some other people seem to be suggesting.

5

Brolic_Broccoli t1_jb2h0ee wrote

Hey,

Thanks for taking the time to read my wall of text comment.

I agree with each part of the legislative intent - and the baby should not be thrown out with the bath water here. The Reforms were badly needed in 2019. Defendants are absolutely entitled to each and every relevant piece of information that is helpful to their case. It's the enforcement mechanisms tied into the matter - such as having the entire case dismissed - because the statutory speedy trial deadline passes amongst other issues.

15

jvspino t1_jb2hus4 wrote

And I appreciate your thoughtful replies. As a non-lawyer, I assume there's a lot of bureaucracy (and some corruption) that slows things down in system and leads to less-than-ideal solutions. Though I hope that we can still make progress in the right direction, even if slowly.

4

Brolic_Broccoli t1_jb2jrhc wrote

For the most part, we're all regular new yorkers who live in the neighborhood and want community safety, willing to put in at least 12 hours a day despite receiving no overtime to process all the documents and videos we have.

My hope is that enough individuals let their legislative representatives know that we need change and tweaks in the right direction, because this affects us and our friends and family.

10