Senate Bill S7041A

                                BILL NUMBER:S7041A

TITLE OF BILL:
An act
to amend the civil practice law and rules, in relation to the
admissibility as business records of recordings and logs made by the
department of correction of the city of New York of inmate telephone
calls

PURPOSE:
Provides for the admissibility of recordings and logs of inmate calls
made by the department of correction of the city of New York, as
business records.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section one amends rule 4518 of the civil practice law and rules by
adding a new subdivision (h).

Section two is the effective date.

JUSTIFICATION:
It is current practice for The New York City Department of Correction
(DOC) to record telephone calls made by inmates as part of its
regular course of business. DOC provides notice to all people on the
call and does not record inmate conversations with their attorney or
other privileged communications. Computer generated logs for these
              

calls contain identifying information about the call, including the
time of call, the telephone number of origin, the telephone number
called, the inmate identification number used to make the call, and
the name of the inmate associated with that identification number.
These are then subject to subpoenas requesting copies of these phone
calls and directing DOC representatives to appear and testify at
court proceedings to authenticate the recordings.

DOC receives approximately 200 requests per week from District
Attorneys and other parties for recordings of inmate telephone calls
and the corresponding logs. Current law requires that these
recordings and logs be authenticated with in-court testimony before
they are admitted into evidence, causing DOC to send an employee to
court to provide authentication testimony which, depending on court
schedules, can cause the employee to spend hours or even an entire
day waiting to testify m what turns out to be a routine process of
authentication.

This proposal seeks the ability to authenticate recorded inmate phone
calls as a business record in writing provided it bears a
certification by an appropriate DOC representative, as opposed to
sending a representative to appear and authenticate the record in
person and diverting already scarce department employee time and
resources. Codifying these recordings and logs as admissible under
the business record exception is appropriate because the records are

made by DOC in the regular course of business and similar allowance
is permissible by law for other business records such as hospital
bills. Nothing in this proposal would preclude the court from
requesting the appropriate DOC representative from being called to
appear and authenticate the record in person, it would simply allow
for the written authentication as a business record. The staff and
resources currently dedicated to authenticating these records in
court could then be better utilized on other pressing legal matters
affecting DOC and on efficiently responding to the parties' requests
for records.

Accordingly, the Mayor urges the earliest possible favorable
consideration of this proposal by the Legislature.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New bill.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.

EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.