One central New York prosecutor said something that’s been lost in the debate over new bail reform laws in New York State, is how changes in the discovery rules are impacting district attorneys' offices. A compressed timetable has assistants scrambling to get reports to defense attorneys.
Oswego County DA Gregory Oakes said his assistants have told him in recent weeks, they feel more like clerks than lawyers. He said his office is understaffed, even though county lawmakers allocated more money to it, in anticipation of bail reform changes.
"We’re having difficulty finding people who are qualified and who want to do this type of work,” Oakes said. “I’m talking to colleagues across the state who are seeing rapid departure of ADAs (assistant district attorneys) from their offices.”
The big change is a new deadline in what’s called discovery law. Prosecutors now have 15 days from arraignment to turn over evidence to defense counsel. Oakes said that’s not enough time to get toxicology or rape kit reports, and worries that police officers forced to rush reports, may make mistakes.
"Right now, we are rushing to provide reports that we don’t even have in our possession yet,” Oakes said. “The concern has become, for cases where there is toxicology, drug testing, rape kits, we’re never going to have those back in 15 days. And if we don’t have them back, is that going to adversely impact our case down the road?” Oakes asked.
And he said there’s a danger when a defendant knows witnesses’ identities.
“Our concern is we’re going to see more and more instances of tampering and threats and bribes occurring because the defendants now know who’s out there,” Oakes said.
Already, Oakes has had one case this year of a defendant allegedly bribing a witness and he suggested that’s a result of the reform. He believes a 45 or 60-day timeline would be more realistic. Proponents of reform say it makes the system fairer for defendants.
