New York Daily News: Feds transferred over 230 undocumented immigrants detained near Mexico border to NYC-area jails
“The Trump Administration has again brought the border crisis to the New York City area. As a sanctuary city, New York has an obligation to ensure that these individuals have access to robust counsel, and NYIFUP stands ready to provide that representation. We will work with our partners at City Hall during this influx to…
Urban Matters: When Child Welfare Intrusion Makes Reproductive Freedom and Illusion
Our Fallon Speaker, Family Defense attorney, and Erin Cloud co-wrote an op-ed advocating for rethinking prevention and childcare advocacy. “Change must happen now. We can start by rejecting the notion that maternal “risk” can be predicted by poverty or Child Protective Services data. In both the child protective and criminal legal systems, there is a…
Investigative Post: The cost of suspending driver’s licenses
“The court system in these cases is really trying to extract money from these clients. It doesn’t serve any public safety function,” says Scott Levy, our Special Counsel. Read the full article here
Medium: What We Mean When We Say #AbolishBigData2019
“In whatever form it might take, we orient our future work toward the commitment that data must be used to measure systems, not people.” Rebecca Widom, our Chief Data Scientist, presented at the University of California Irvine’s two-day workshop “Datafication and Community Activism: Redrawing the Boundaries of Research” on how the important work of data…
New York Law Journal: Albany Must Reject Any “Dangerousness”-Based Preventative Detention Scheme
The Bronx Defenders, Legal Aid Society, and Brooklyn Defender Services came together in this op-ed to speak against extending preventative detention to accused New Yorkers based on perceptions of “dangerousness,” which could mean an increase in the number of people in pretrial detention as well as sanction further racial discrimination and bias. “We will not…
Documented: Immigration Hearings in New York Are Being Rescheduled Without Notice
“There have been at least two dozen clients who, only through checking the portal have we learned that their individual hearings, scheduled mostly for June, have just been unilaterally rescheduled for dates as early as next week, and there has been no notice, no phone call,” says Sarah Deri Oshiro, our Managing Director of the…
New York Daily News: Public defenders call on city to invest more money in legal representation for immigrants facing deportation
The Bronx Defenders, Legal Aid Society, and Brooklyn Defender Services asked City Council for an increased budget in order to represent immigrants facing deportation at Varick Street. “The Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services and Bronx Defenders will ask during a budget hearing for $16.6 million for the next fiscal year–an increase of $6.6 million.”…
The Appeal: Bronx DA Says She Wants To Reduce Overdose Deaths, But Opposes A Program That Can Help
“The failed war on drugs has shown us that we cannot arrest and punish our way out of the opioid crisis. Safe injection sites are a common sense and practical way to meet people where they are, connect them to the services they need, and hopefully prevent deaths.” Avery McNeil, our Alternatives to Incarceration specialist,…
The Appeal: What Happens Before Police Press “Record”?
“Even if the police are giving Miranda warnings right after they hit play, it doesn’t mean they haven’t already talked to our clients about the content of the interrogation before that. And that obviously raises questions about whether pre-interrogation conversations with the police undermine the force of the Miranda rights in the first place.” Emily…
New York Law Journal: Court Dates Moved Up Without Warning, Advocates for Immigrants Claim
“According to immigration attorneys, the DOJ’s decision to unilaterally move up hearing dates fits a pattern and practice by federal authorities set on undermining legal representation for immigrants. They point to a similar set of decisions to implement video conferencing for detainees during hearings last year, which is now the subject of a federal lawsuit….
New York Daily News: Everyone in immigration detention needs a lawyer: The nation should follow New York’s lead
“NYIFUP demonstrated the importance of publicly-funded deportation defense, raising the level of practice in the court and strengthening both fairness and efficiency. The Vera Institute of Justice evaluated NYIFUP, finding that 48% of immigrants succeeded in their cases, while unrepresented immigrants in the same court were successful only 4% of the time. NYIFUP also produced other benefits…
Investigative Post: A changing tide on license suspensions
The Bronx Defenders is part of a coalition with the Fines and Fees Justice Center and National Center for Law and Economic Justice to advocate for the end of suspensions over unpaid traffic fines. Traffic enforcement is disproportionately concentrated in low-income black and Latino neighborhoods, where residents often have difficulty paying tickets. New York is one of at least…
The Legislative Gazette: Wrongfully accused push for discovery reform
“We can no longer accept a bail system that creates and entrenches wealth and race-based disparities and feeds mass incarceration; a speedy trial law that allows cases to languish without a realistic opportunity to have one’s day in court; or a discovery law that deprives the accused of access to the most basic information about…
Lawfare Blog: New York Lawsuit Challenges Replacement of Immigration Court Hearings with Video Technology
“The suit alleges violations of class members’ First Amendment rights to access the courts and Fifth Amendment due process rights as well as violations of provisions of the INA guaranteeing fair hearings and access to counsel during removal proceedings and the Rehabilitation Act, which requires reasonable accommodations for those with disabilities.” Read the full article…
New York Daily News: Advocates for criminal justice reform accuse prosecutors, state task force of falling short on bail changes
“The advocates, including The Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn Defender Services, the Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union and Citizen Action of New York, said in a statement on Monday that they are looking for ‘meaningful bail reform that protects the presumption of innocence and maximizes pretrial liberty.” Read more here
Bronx Justice News: District Attorney Darcel Clark On Criminal Justice Reform Legislation: “The Question Is Not If But How We Implement”
“DA Clark has rightly acknowledged the inevitability of discovery, bail, and speedy trial reform in New York. But acknowledgement of inevitability is not enough. The time for delay and foot-dragging is over,” The Bronx Defenders said in a statement. “Bronx-residents–particularly those from communities of color–have waited long enough for a criminal legal system that respects…
The New Republic: The Crime of Parenting While Poor
“The whole existence of ACS lets us pretend that we’re protecting children.” Emma Ketteringham, our managing director of the Family Defense Practice, comments on how parents of color living in poverty are more likely to be overpoliced and criminalized just for parenting. Statistics show that parents living in poverty are unfairly scrutinized by the Administration…
Criminal (In)Justice: #98 Holistic Criminal Defense
James Anderson, a senior behavioral and social scientist at the RAND Corporation, and one of the authors of “The Effects of Holistic Defense on Criminal Justice Outcomes,” which The Bronx Defenders is featured in, talks about a better method of providing criminal defense services through holistic defense. Hear the full podcast here
New York Law Journal: Treatment of Transgender People in Custody Must Improve
“In the five years I’ve worked as a defender, I have never met a transgender client who was not abused or harassed in some way by the NYPD during the process of their arrest.” Deb Lolai, our LGBTQ specialist, wrote an op-ed highlighting transphobic practice rampant in the NYPD. While in detention, trans and gender…
New York Daily News: Defense attorneys demand tour of freezing Brooklyn federal jail
The Bronx Defenders, along with the Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services and other advocates, demand to be sent to MDC Warden Herman Quay and access the jail’s housing units, medical facilities and mess halls. “They lost the right to say that they can manage this. They lost all credibility.” Read more here.
Filter Magazine: Public Defenders Are Hugely Overworked–But Also Underpaid Compared With Prosecutors
“Every aspect of my role from mentoring and fostering interest in public defense careers in students early on to extending offers…to saying goodbye to my colleagues who no longer found this career to be sustainable for them…I am hearing the same question over and over. While I am incredibly committed to supporting my clients and…
Queens Daily Eagle: DAs, Lawmakers And Advocates Rally to Freeze ICE Out of NY Courts
“ICE arrests inside and around New York courthouses increased by 1700 percent between 2016 and 2018, according to a report by the Immigrant Defense Project. Queens and Brooklyn account for the highest number of courthouse ICE arrests in the state, the report reveals.” Read more here.
New York Times: Jail or Bail? There’s a New Option
In New York City, supervised release is an alternative to jail and bail. “It reinforces this notion that people charged with violent offenses are somehow less deserving of the presumption of innocence than others.” Scott Levy, our special counsel, on how excluding certain statutes in supervised release hinder reform. Read more here.
The City: 20 Years After the NYPD Killing of Amadou Diallo, His Mother and Community Ask: What’s Changed?
“His murder was in the context of a stop. It was a horrible example of the officers thinking black people pose a threat, even for movements that are innocuous and benign.” Our Deputy Director of Impact Litigation, Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, spoke to New York Magazine’s The City for the anniversary of Amadou Diallo. Read more…
New York Law Journal: New Yorkers Should Push for Police Accountability
“There’s another way that New Yorkers can push for police accountability–and it involves their elected district attorneys. This form of accountability comes from ‘suppression’ hearings.” Oded Oren, our criminal defense attorney, wrote an op-ed on how New Yorkers can push for police accountability through holding elected district attorneys responsible for their inactions. Suppression hearings held…