Governor Cuomo wants to eliminate cash bail for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies

Is it right that the poor should languish in jail while awaiting trial simply because they can't afford bail? Governor Cuomo doesn't think so. His State of the State address earlier this year announced his desire to eliminate cash bail for persons charged with misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies. In addition to the fairness issue, there is also the matter of the capacity of New York jails and holding facilities, a costly burden which could be alleviated by locking up less people based on their lack of ability to make bail.

Although announced in the State of the State, the proposed bail reform did not later appear in the Governor's budget, perhaps due to political constraints. Yet there may soon be a renewed effort to push the proposal in the legislature, now that Democrats gained two new seats in the State Senate in April. Democrats now technically have a one-vote majority in the Senate, although one Democrat consistently votes Republican and could not necessarily be counted on to vote in favor of bail reform.

Meanwhile, many New Yorkers charged with misdemeanors like driving on a suspended license or low-level drug offenses may spend days, weeks or months in jail while they await their constitutionally guaranteed speedy trial, because they can’t afford to make bail.

This is not so in Dutchess County, however, where a Supreme Court judge ruled in February that it was unconstitutional to set cash bail for a defendant without first considering ability to pay.

Elimination of cash bail is opposed by most district attorneys, who at the very least want to keep the right to ask for bail on a case-by-case basis and oppose a blanket ban applying to entire categories of offenses. DAs point out that current law already gives judges the discretion to release defendants on their own recognizance when charged with first-time or low-level offenses. Upstate DAs additionally balk at the added time and expense they anticipate to travel to New York City to round up defendants arrested upstate on drug charges and whom they deem unlikely to willingly return to court for their trial date.