Discovery is foundational to fairness.

Help us protect evidence sharing laws today.

NEW YORK’S DISCOVERY LAWS WORK

The single greatest requisite of the fair administration of justice is evidence sharing. There can be no guarantee of justice or fairness without open, early and complete discovery.

The Governor claims that sharing evidence with New Yorkers undermines public safety. She’s dangerously wrong.

Repealing New York’s discovery laws will not “reduce delays,” “streamline case processing” or “close loopholes,” as the Governor claims. Instead, it will gut Kalief’s Law, leading to more wrongful convictions, coerced plea deals, and clogged courts.

The Governor’s proposal would:

End Open-File Discovery in NY

The Governor’s proposal will bring us back to the days when prosecutors decided which pieces of evidence are relevant to the charges and which allowed them to withhold evidence from the defense. As a result, the proposal would allow them to redact any information from discovery material that they deem irrelevant to the charges without getting approval from a judge. Together these changes enable prosecutors to withhold potentially favorable information from the defense. If adopted, this proposal would mark the end of open-file discovery in New York and bring us back to the days of wrongful convictions.
Allow Police to Withhold Evidence

Currently, the law ensures that the police cannot hide evidence by requiring prosecutors to disclose all the evidence in the possession of the police before they can state “ready for trial.” This rule is vital because most evidence in a criminal case is collected by police. The Governor’s proposal removes that requirement. Instead, prosecutors would only be required to disclose evidence in their actual possession (anything in the possession of the police would be deemed only in their constructive possession). This means that police decide what evidence gets disclosed to the defense, creating a system that rewards police intransigence.
Remove All Accountability

The proposal turns a law that ensures fairness and transparency through meaningful enforcement into a toothless guideline that will lead to prolonged pretrial incarceration and wrongful convictions. Under the current law, prosecutors have expansive time frames to hand over all evidence in a case: 90 days for misdemeanor cases and 6 months for felonies, with numerous exceptions that expand the speedy trial clock, including necessary motions by both the prosecution and defense. Under the Governor’s proposal, prosecutors would be able to stop this clock without turning over evidence and with no meaningful consequence for their failure to do so.