I’ve had it. New York’s criminal-justice system might not be the nationwide laughingstock that Mayor Eric Adams referred to as it. (I’m undecided how many individuals in Idaho learn about it.) However it has turn out to be a joke to the police, assistant district attorneys and court docket personnel who take care of it each day — and an absolute tragedy for victims. It won’t be fastened if Gov. Kathy Hochul wins re-election. That’s the reason I help Lee Zeldin for New York governor.
My household has lived in New York Metropolis for 4 generations. I grew up within the Ravenswood public-housing tasks in Lengthy Island Metropolis, Queens. I began working within the Queens district legal professional’s workplace in 1977, watching metropolis crime attain its peak in 1990, with greater than 2,200 murders, and its low in 2019, when there have been simply over 300 murders.
I retired in January 2020, simply earlier than the brand new bail, Elevate the Age and discovery legal guidelines got here into impact and “coincidentally” when the town’s crime charge started its historic rise. By the start of October 2019, earlier than bail reform, the town had seen 71,699 main crimes that yr. Up to now this yr, there have been 95,273.
I began writing about bail reform and criminal-justice points after I left the DA’s workplace. I wished to remain out of candidate endorsements as a lot as doable, presenting the details surrounding these reforms in as impartial, factual and rational a approach as I may. However it has turn out to be frustratingly obvious that neither this Legislature nor this governor will repair New York’s criminal-justice system.
And within the clearest indication of the place she intends to take this state, Hochul simply promoted Joshua Norkin to be her deputy counsel advising her on criminal-justice points. Norkin was the mission coordinator of the Authorized Assist Society’s Decarceration Mission, which was a chief pusher of the disastrous bail legal guidelines.
The governor claims she has fastened the bail legal guidelines and handled “repeat offenders.” She has not. She has tinkered with a disastrous regulation, enjoying across the margins however having little to no actual impact. Judges nonetheless can not set bail on profession drug sellers, automotive thieves, shoplifters and the like irrespective of what number of prior convictions they’ve.
She claims she has attacked gun crime. She has not. Convening “gun violence listening classes” and investing in “sufferer help packages” sounds spectacular, however they’ll do nothing to discourage the 17-year-old gangbanger with a gun who is aware of he’ll face solely juvenile fees in household court docket.
She has failed to repair the invention legal guidelines, whereas as many as 60% to 70% of misdemeanor instances and one in 4 felonies are dismissed partially as a result of prosecutors can’t adjust to the burdens required.
She has completed nothing with the disastrous Elevate the Age legal guidelines which can be letting a whole bunch of 16- and 17-year-olds escape any actual punishment for violent crime. Nor has she completed something to make sure judges can remand or set bail on career-criminal defendants deemed to be a risk to the general public.
As crime was rising final yr, she proudly signed a invoice releasing a whole bunch of parole violators from Rikers and county jails throughout the state.
Democratic progressive insurance policies have destroyed a criminal-justice system that lowered crime on this metropolis by greater than 80%. Their “reforms” have introduced us again to the crime ranges of a decade in the past, endlessly to future will increase. New York Metropolis crime has gone up greater than 33% since these legal guidelines had been handed by “progressive” Democrats in Albany and signed into regulation whereas Hochul was lieutenant governor.
Hochul doesn’t have the abdomen for this battle. It received’t be straightforward even for probably the most ardent advocate to undo what progressive legislators have completed. It’ll require utilizing the veto pen, the bully pulpit, lawsuits and difficult, reasonably than blindly repeating, the absurd claims reform advocates and crime-deniers make: that releasing hundreds of profession criminals underneath these legal guidelines had nothing to do with rising crime. It’ll imply stopping the extremely irresponsible Invoice de Blasio plan to shut Rikers, which is able to launch hundreds extra profession criminals onto our streets. It’ll require boldly confronting the far-left wing of her social gathering and taking the case on to the individuals.
Within the 2021 election, Democrats misplaced two district legal professional races, in Nassau and Suffolk, the third- and fourth-most populous counties within the state, primarily over bail reform and rising crime. They realized nothing — aside from to attempt to change the topic.
However I’ve had it. These legal guidelines — bail reform, discovery, Elevate the Age, Much less Is Extra — are destroying this metropolis and this state, creating tens of hundreds of extra crime victims and ruining the lives of individuals in so lots of our neighborhoods. Re-electing Gov. Hochul won’t even start to unravel this drawback.
That’s the reason I’m voting for Lee Zeldin.
Jim Quinn was government district legal professional within the Queens DA’s workplace, the place he served for 42 years.
