The Briefing:

Soares had long aligned himself with conservative lawmakers and law enforcement unions as he advocated for hyper-carceral policies, but Albany voters saw through Soares’ misinformation and fearmongering. The Albany DA race sends a clear message to politicians and prosecutors: New Yorkers know that bail reform makes our communities safer, and fearmongering around bail reform is a losing political strategy.

But a review of the Consortium’s proposed policy changes clearly demonstrates that what the law enforcement-led organization truly desires is to end bail reform in New York and return to a wealth-based, unfair system where people must buy their own freedom

Beyond fearmongering and lying about bail reform, the articles and posts prove the point that law enforcement care only about jailing more New Yorkers. NYPD named the wrong judge and wrong DA in its critical posts. Above all, law enforcement’s attacks on the man are cruel and serve to obfuscate NYPD’s own ineptitude and ineffectiveness.

Due to a mistaken belief about relevant legal standards, the study makes an incorrect conclusion relating to recidivism in people charged with bail eligible crimes.

Not only does the case have nothing to do with bail reform, but the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has been transparent in its challenge of identifying the people responsible and their relative levels of culpability. Innocent people should not be jailed indefinitely.

The truth is discovery reform does not cause crime and does not create any additional burden for law enforcement to furnish evidence to people charged with crimes.

The research is yet another example that demonstrates the way sensational and cynical news coverage undermines public safety by misleading readers about the effects of common sense criminal justice reforms.

There are already serious consequences for car theft, and Senator Jeremy Cooney’s overbroad bill fails to acknowledge the devastating implications of pretrial detention and the root causes of crime and instances of harm.

The case has nothing to do with bail reform, and reflects an archaic and flawed logic that more drug arrests mean more safety, when the facts show that tough-on-crime policies have only exacerbated our country’s challenges with drugs and substance use.

Pro-carceral voices do not care about the statutory purpose of bail, instead hoping for a world where anyone charged with a crime is not afforded due process and is instead “punished” immediately with pretrial detention. The case out of Yonkers presents a compelling example of the bail system in New York working as intended.

Discovery reform did not create onerous burdens on prosecutors to produce new evidence in order to comply with state laws, nor did it cause any increase in violent felony case dismissals.

There is no evidence that the homicides were committed by a child or by someone with a criminal history, but that did not stop Soares from trying to score political points and advocate for policies that will put more vulnerable people in jail.

Though the case has nothing to do with bail reform, the New York State Police Investigators Association attempted to tie the case to bail reform, and the state troopers union took the extraordinary step of publicly criticizing the judge in the case for exercising his discretion to set bail.

Instead of advocating for investments in communities that actually work, Centanni and Soares cynically take aim at the state’s bail reform laws – which have been rolled back three times, allowing for more pretrial detention – for not being punitive enough.

The WIVB piece quotes “legal experts” who fearmonger and lie about bail reform. The misinformation comes as Gov. Hochul prepares to forge ahead with her dangerous proposal to weaken civil rights protections and unnecessarily jail more New Yorkers.

Hochul’s decision to pacify cynical media outlets that actively lie about bail reform and undermine support for a successful policy instead of her constituents is another example of the governor choosing politics and optics over the lives of New Yorkers.

The crime in question has no connection to bail reform, Raise the Age, or any criminal justice reform aimed at making the system more fair and just.

The truth is that 1) discovery reform is not creating any unjust outcomes; 2) the reforms do not create any “onerous” burden for prosecutors and; 3) the proposed changes are no “tweak” and would undermine the efficacy of the original law.

Meanwhile, the same New York City leaders and police officials who have been cynically claiming that rollbacks to bail reform are necessary took to the media to push back against House Republican lies about crime. In doing so, they exposed their own lies in the months-long campaign for mass pretrial detention.

The proposed changes to the law – falsely styled as a technical tweak – would entirely undo the reforms in practice by creating case delays, shifting the compliance burden from the prosecution to the defense, and encouraging DAs to withhold discovery.

Researchers also released arrest data this week that debunks Gov. Kathy Hochul’s claim that bail reform emboldened a small group of people allegedly responsible for crimes in the city.

The Daily News continues to play a key role in misleading the public about bail reform. The piece based its argument on a misleading Siena poll that inaccurately queried New Yorkers about Hochul’s proposal.

Authors of a recent study on bail reform not-so-subtly rejected Hochul’s proposal, and there is no “inconsistency” found in a section of the bail law that has existed for decades.

A police official told reporters that bail was set and paid in the underlying case, meaning the case has nothing to do with bail reform. The article lied to readers by linking an instance of gun violence with bail reform and editorializing that the case will “stoke debate” in Albany.

We have decades of evidence showing that Tierney’s ideas – locking more people up pre-trial and enacting longer sentences for people convicted of drug crimes – do not work, instead magnifying harm that disproportionately affects Black and Brown New Yorkers.

The issue is clear. There is no inconsistency in the law and no reason judges should be confused about a standard that has existed for decades. Moreover, top court officials told lawmakers at a joint hearing that judges don’t need additional training to understand the state’s bail laws.

This case has nothing to do with bail reform. The man accused of the crime was released from pretrial detention in 2020 because prosecutors violated his right to a speedy trial, not because of bail reform. He also had already pleaded guilty, so bail was no longer an issue in his case.

Bail reform is not a driver of crime, and advocating for carceral policies harms marginalized communities.

Copaganda and misleading media coverage has undermined support for bail reform. Media coverage of bail reform has outpaced the increases in crime in New York City, and coverage of bail reform in the media spikes leading up to elections and rollbacks.

Instead, the testimony often focused on the dangerous implications of Hochul’s proposal to remove the least restrictive means standard in bail-eligible cases.

But Hochul has not identified what the inconsistencies are, and her proposal does away with a standard that has existed for decades in New York law and ensures more New Yorkers will suffer the dehumanizing and deadly impact of pretrial jailing.

A deeper dive into the data and the law demonstrates that bail reform has nothing to do with any gaps in DCJS data, and that there is no reason to believe failure-to-appear rates have increased.

In reality, the dataset cited by the report points to the fact that discovery reform is working as intended. Discovery reform has caused prosecutors to take a long-needed look at the types of cases they prosecute. The laws did not create a burden to seek out any information, documents, or evidence that is not in the control of law enforcement in the vast majority of cases

Dangerousness standards produce racist results and increased pretrial jail populations while further introducing ambiguity and opacity into our criminal legal system. Any dangerousness standard would only further exacerbate racial disparities in New York’s jails, where Black and brown people make up 73 percent of New Yorkers incarcerated in jail but 36 percent of the state’s population.

By eliminating the requirement that judges only set bail when “necessary,” Hochul is inviting judges to send people to jail when it is not necessary. Such a practice would violate the moral underpinning of the criminal justice system as well as the United States Constitution.

The report from FWD.us, which builds on a similar 2021 report, clearly illustrates through a new data analysis that bail reform does not undermine public safety or contribute to any increases in crime. Freedom, Then the Press, Volume II finds that over 1,600 stories have falsely linked bail reform and crime despite the emerging studies that demonstrated low rearrest rates for people impacted by bail reform.

Bail reform had nothing to do with this case. The man charged in this case was not rearrested on pretrial release, nor was he released under bail reform. A judge had discretion to set bail in for the assault-related charges and chose to set bail at $7,500.

The reality is that the Post’s story has more to do with our failed approach to public health and safety than it has to do with bail reform. Multiple arrests for the same alleged low-level offense indicate a person’s basic needs are not being met, not that the person should be jailed, likely on unaffordable bail. A person’s repeated contact with the criminal legal system is a sign of the system’s failure, not, as the Post suggests, a sign of the need for increased contact.

Bail is meant to ensure a person’s appearance in court. But Larson, drawing on his experience on the bench, stated that when judges subjectively perceived someone to be a threat to the community, they would set bail “in the guise of concern over the defendant showing up in court.” Larson is admitting that judges regularly violated the statutory purpose of bail in New York.

The very report Blakeman commissioned to try to undermine bail reform, actually proved the opposite: as multiple outlets confirmed, rearrest rates have actually declined since bail reform. And Blakeman's statistics actually point to the ongoing success of bail reform in Nassau County. According to the report, fewer than 10 percent of people in Nassau County were rearrested for any offense – which is half the statewide rearrest rate for any alleged offense.

The grief and pain that family, friends and community members feel is real and unimaginable. But the Post chose to exploit that pain for political points, using the victim's mother to tie the case to bail reform, when the reality is much more complicated.

First, years of research is conclusive and draws no connection between any increases in crime and bail reform. Next, the claim that bail reform changed law enforcement’s ability to detain people is misleading at best. Bail reform only affected some misdemeanors and low-level felonies. Judges can and do continue to set bail for people charged with violent felonies. Finally, we know that rearrests for violent felonies are exceptionally rare since bail reform went into effect.

“Dangerousness” has never been a standard for setting bail in New York, and the state definitively declined to adopt it in the 1970s – and for good reason. Allowing a judge’s (or algorithm’s) prediction of “dangerousness” to serve as a basis for holding someone in jail while they are presumed innocent has clearly yielded racist results based on data from jurisdictions that allow this practice.

Judge Penny Wolfgang acknowledged that – as a sitting judge – she made bail decisions based on who she believed should or should not be in jail and not based on the statutory purpose of bail, which is to ensure a person’s return to future court dates. In short, she admitted that during her decades-long tenure as a judge, she violated the Constitution and law.

We know that the safest communities are the ones with the most resources, not the highest jail populations. Early empirical results from voluntary pretrial diversion programs and community-based restorative justice practices suggest that they are more effective than traditional approaches in decreasing the likelihood of new arrests among perpetrators.

Bail reform had nothing to do with this case. The one person who has been arrested to date was charged with second-degree robbery – a Class C Violent Felony, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 3.5 years and maximum of 15. This charge, like all violent felonies, remains untouched by bail reform. A judge could have set bail in this case, but apparently opted for supervised release instead, apparently based in part on the individual’s relative lack of involvement.

The Post wrote about a New York resident’s history of arrests, suggesting his most recent arrests were a consequence of bail reform. This is false. The man’s record of arrest dates back to 2000, meaning that many, if not most of these arrests, predated bail reform entirely. Moreover, the recent incidents cited in the article are examples of attempted petty theft from major chain stores, in which nothing was actually stolen.

Bail reform had nothing to do with the underlying case or the current case. Moreover, the Post lied about a "tide of violence" in New York. There is no “tide of violence” connected to bail reform. In New York City, incidents of violent crime are at historic lows. Rearrests for alleged violent crimes remained exceptionally rare after bail reform was enacted, just as before.

In the wake of two unsolved shootings in Albany, Soares asserted, without evidence, that bail reform has “demonstrably impacted violent crime in our most vulnerable neighborhoods.” It is true that tragic instances of harm occur, but research draws no connection between bail reform and any increases in crime. Pretrial arrest rates for violent crimes are nearly identical pre- and post-bail reform.

Bail reform made no difference in this case. Neither the current case nor the man's underlying case had anything to do with bail reform. The man accused was not released on pretrial supervision because of bail reform at the time he allegedly committed this other act of violence. The earlier case from 2021, on which he was released, was a violent felony, which was eligible for bail before and after bail reform.

The man who was arrested was not released under bail reform, nor rearrested while on pretrial release for another case. The man’s current charges – like all violent felonies and many misdemeanors and non-violent felonies – remain bail eligible, and he is currently detained on $5,000 in bail.

Outlets drew attention to a 2015 case where Hernandez was wrongfully detained for more than a year on unaffordable bail. Mr. Hernandez’s previous case had nothing to do with bail reform, which was not enacted until 2020. Had the new bail laws been in place at the time, Hernandez’s original charges would not have been bail eligible anyway, as bail reform only applies to misdemeanors and low-level felonies. His charge from 2015 was a violent felony.

The coalition of Nassau County mayors continued to amplify misinformation and ignore recent data from their own County police force that points to the ongoing success of bail reform.

New Yorkers – including NYPD Commissioner Sewell – should be celebrating the public policy success of New York bail reform, not lying to try to protect the status quo.

First degree rape – like all violent felonies and numerous non-violent felonies and misdemeanors – is eligible for bail in New York. This was true before bail reform and remains true today.

Bail reform does not lead to a rise in crime.

Police data is unsubstantiated. Actual data shows that bail reform works.

The person in question was released because the Monroe County District Attorney, under questionable circumstances, chose not to charge a bail-eligible offense.

There is no evidence that rearrests are tied to modest pretrial reform.

The man was not free because of bail reform, and it is a lie to suggest otherwise.

“Dangerousness” has never been a standard for setting bail in New York, and the state definitively declined to adopt it in the 1970s—and for good reason.

No pre-trial reforms impacted this case in any way.

Pre-trial reform has had no impact on these types of cases.

The Buffalo shooter had no prior convictions and was not out on bail.

The shooting that took place in the Bronx on Tuesday night has no connection to pretrial freedom. Anything that happens after trial or a plea has been taken has no connection to bail whatsoever.

Just yesterday, the C.D.C issued a report on surging nation-wide gun deaths in the pandemic’s first year. This increase is occurring in jurisdictions across the country and is not tied to bail reform.

All New Yorkers deserve safety, and the safest communities have the greatest resources—not the highest incarceration rates.

The law, C.P.L. § 510.10, defines bail-eligible charges. These include felonies classified as violent, certain misdemeanors including sexual offenses, any charge against a person on parole or probation, and certain rearrests for otherwise non-bail-eligible charges.

Among much else, this piece relies on the NYPD's account of the case of a Bronx teenager that was fully discredited by video footage.

Judge Naita Semaj determined that NYPD Officer Taulant Gjonbalaj and his colleagues lied in this case, finding the “incredible…self serving” police testimony “had no value.” Video fully discredited the police account.

Possessing a firearm is a bail-eligible offense. This case was in no way related to bail reform.

It is a fallacy and distraction from discussions about advancing public safety to blame this upsetting occurrence on bail reform.

As the largest city in Westchester County, Yonkers is home to more than 20% of the total county population. And according to the numbers released by the County, crime in Westchester is way down.

The Cayuga County Legislature misrepresents the intent and impact of pretrial reforms.

Because the person accused of attempting to burglarize a nail salon was “released on bail” at the time of the incident, his prior charge was bail eligible and therefore release was not due to bail reform.

Increases in violence are occurring nationwide, and there is no evidence tying these increases to “progressive” policies or reforms.

Pinning this tragedy on bail reform is a misguided distraction rather than a move toward public safety for everyone. Bail could have been set in the prior open cases of the person accused.

It is false to say that shooting-related charges are not bail eligible.

Although the article says that the person’s case was not bail eligible, it is immediately clear that the case was bail-eligible, and that bail was set.

Like concerns about gun violence generally, the grief and suffering of these families is incredibly real. But to use them to push false narratives is exploitative.

Muehl made a series of lies about modest pre-trial reforms implemented. We debunk each every point in this briefing.

Neither the bail law or bail reform had anything whatsoever to do with the case. A judge could and did set bail. Millions who saw the headline took away the opposite.

The judge had a full slate of options regarding pretrial conditions for the teen, from release to electronic monitoring to remand. He set bail. Moreover, Adams's version of the case was wildly misleading.

The article, like many others, capitalizes on legitimate concern about gun violence by falsely shifting blame to bail reform.

Each of Eric Adams's policy responses is fundamentally flawed and spreads misinformation.

Inclusion of bail status without critical context encourages the improper association between this sensationalized story and bail reform.

The connection between the racial justice protests in 2020 and crime follows police talking points based on the widely-discredited "Ferguson Effect" theory.

The case had been pending for more than two years prior to the implementation of discovery reform and was dismissed a year and a half after the law went into effect.

There is nothing to suggest these thefts can be tied to any reforms. Bail, discovery, and prosecutorial reforms did not affect this case.

New York State data on the rearrests of people who were free while awaiting trial further confirms that bail reform has had no negative effect on public safety.

As with the prior bail statute, judges have discretion to set bail or not and those who can afford it may pay bail and secure their release.

Reform had no impact on these cases.

CBS Albany falsely attributes a person’s release to bail reform and repeats fearmongering list from police to smear new discovery reform

Statistics have simply not borne out the doomsday predictions that pro-police groups have been making.

Rape charges and all sex offenses, including misdemeanor sex offenses, remain eligible for money bail and pre-trial jailing under the new laws.

“We have to stop blaming bail reform for failures of our social safety net and we must recognize the previous approach failed in much more traumatic ways.”

A prosecutor exploits a death to smear bail reform by suggesting, wrongly, that jail was the best place for someone struggling with substance use disorder.

It is simply inaccurate to state that bail reform was the reason for this person’s release. Judges had discretion to detain.

The bail statute does not apply post-conviction. This incident is in no way connected to bail reform.

The law wasn't "forgotten." The law that the Judge cited is actually a key provision of the new bail reform law.

Outlier cases are being exploited by GOP officials to undermine bail reform as part of a continuing disinformation campaign.

Rikers Doctor: "We have to stop blaming bail reform for failures of our social safety net and we must recognize the previous approach failed in much more traumatic ways."

The New York State Senate is hoping to jail its way out of mass incarceration.

A robbery that results in any kind of physical injury can be charged as Robbery in the Second Degree, which is a Class C violent felony and bail-eligible offense.

The Mayor's statements are all unsupported by the available numbers.

Police Commissioner acknowledge “no direct link” between criminal justice reform and this case. NBC New York story remains uncorrected.

It is irresponsible, dishonest, and opportunistic to claim causation between bail reform and selective short-term fluctuations in crime stats.

Publicly available information indicates that man was charged with Assault in the Second Degree, which is still eligible for jail.

The tragic death of Mr. Maldonado is, unequivocally, not the result of the new discovery laws.

Ordering jail for unpaid tickets would leave people less able to pay their balance upon release.

The man was was never actually charged with rape or any other sex offense.

Judge: “The spirit of the statute is designed so that people are not warehoused in jail pending a date for trial.”

Anyone who could buy their freedom prior to January 1 would have been free to fight their charges under these same circumstances.

Crime Victim: “I’ve been dismayed to watch politicians exploit what happened, to use it against bail reform.”

A Long Island judge intentionally broke the law to jail a man because “I don’t want you walking around my neighborhood."

The coverage provides no basis for the assertion that Ms. Sheftall would have been incarcerated for non-violent charges prior to January 1.

The decision to issue and unseal the warrant for her arrest on federal charges is a publicity stunt

Commissioner Shea’s comments are contradicted by the NYPD’s own data.

A judge could have set bail and jailed the woman according to the new bail laws, but chose not to.

New York bail reform provides judges discretion to set bail in cases where, as here, an individual is rearrested on a felony while released.

People charged with misdemeanor domestic violence have long been released pre-trial precisely because stakeholders tend to agree that jail does not address the underlying problems.

Several of the cases highlighted for this article involve drug possession and only one case out of nine involves physical harm to a person, who overdosed after a drug sale.

Bail could not have prevented this terrible tragedy. It is illegal to use bail as punishment before a fair trial.