BakedBread65 t1_jdya8k7 wrote on March 28, 2023 at 1:52 AM

Reply to comment by mowotlarx in New Yorkers overwhelmingly support bail changes ahead of state budget deadline: Poll by Grass8989

The system will always be flawed with this law. When you give a defendant the chance to dismiss a case because the prosecution didn’t turn over the memobook for the 6th officer who responded to a scene, the defense is going to file a motion to dismiss. Then that takes months to resolve, slowing down the case, and clogging the courts further. Now prosecutors are so busy all cases are being plead down, and nobody has time for trial, so tons of discovery is being shared so nobody goes to trial.

In the same way the bail law gives judges no discretion, the discovery law gives judges no discretion to weigh the importance/prejudice of any items not turned over.

Nobody is saying NY should go back to the old ways for discovery, but there are other states that have balanced criminal discovery in a way that doesn’t result in the dismissals NY has.

mowotlarx t1_jdyf5fb wrote on March 28, 2023 at 2:26 AM

If a system required defendants to have one hand tied behind their backs for everything to work properly, it was always a broken justice system.

Discovery laws are just. The issue is funding the court system. We need to pump way more $$ for staffing to handle the work they always should have been doing

BakedBread65 t1_jdyhmya wrote on March 28, 2023 at 2:45 AM

I don’t think you actually read what I wrote because you’re not responding to it.

Again, the problem is not requiring more discovery, but imposing a penalty completely disproportionate to the items not turned over, especially when those items aren’t in the people’s possession.

KaiDaiz t1_je0apag wrote on March 28, 2023 at 2:24 PM

their mindset already set...if a paper is missing a dotted i -therefore entire paper must be tossed and failed