Assembly Bill A5977

2021-2022 Legislative Session

Relates to motions for resentencing by the people

download bill text pdf

Sponsored By

Archive: Last Bill Status - In Assembly Committee


  • Introduced
    • In Committee Assembly
    • In Committee Senate
    • On Floor Calendar Assembly
    • On Floor Calendar Senate
    • Passed Assembly
    • Passed Senate
  • Delivered to Governor
  • Signed By Governor

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2021-A5977 (ACTIVE) - Details

See Senate Version of this Bill:
S257
Current Committee:
Assembly Codes
Law Section:
Criminal Procedure Law
Laws Affected:
Add §440.48, CP L
Versions Introduced in Other Legislative Sessions:
2019-2020: A9055, S6892
2023-2024: A2722, S2891

2021-A5977 (ACTIVE) - Summary

Allows for motions for resentencing by the people for certain sentences.

2021-A5977 (ACTIVE) - Bill Text download pdf

                            
 
                     S T A T E   O F   N E W   Y O R K
 ________________________________________________________________________
 
                                   5977
 
                        2021-2022 Regular Sessions
 
                           I N  A S S E M B L Y
 
                               March 4, 2021
                                ___________
 
 Introduced by M. of A. WALKER -- read once and referred to the Committee
   on Codes
 
 AN  ACT  to amend the criminal procedure law, in relation to motions for
   resentencing by the people
 
   THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND  ASSEM-
 BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

   Section 1. The Legislature finds and declares the following:
   1.  People who commit crimes grow and change over time. The commission
 of a crime--no matter the offense--need not  define  a  person  forever.
 Continued incarceration of people who no longer pose a risk to community
 safety is not in the public interest and only makes our State and socie-
 ty less humane.
   2.  Yet  after  a person is sentenced, we provide few meaningful mech-
 anisms to review the length of that  sentence  based  on  how  a  person
 responds  to  incarceration. We limit these opportunities even though at
 the time of sentencing,  all  involved--including  prosecutors,  judges,
 defense  attorneys, and even the person sentenced--are not positioned to
 determine with any precision how long a sentence needs to be in order to
 fulfill the purpose of incarceration. It is impossible  to  predict  how
 individuals will develop during incarceration.
   3.  The  result  of  this  system is thousands of people still serving
 prison terms despite having long-since been  rehabilitated.  Our  system
 traps  tens  of  thousands of people in New York's prisons who are not a
 safety risk, many for life or de facto life sentences.
   4. Our failure to provide a meaningful opportunity  for  release  also
 traps  a  large  number  of  people  in prison who are serving sentences
 imposed during the tough-on-crime era that we would not impose today.
   5. Our overreliance on lengthy sentences  helped  explode  New  York's
 prison population.
   a.  In  1980,  New  York incarcerated just over 20,000 people. Despite
 recent efforts to reduce the state's  prison  population,  there  remain
 
  EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                       [ ] is old law to be omitted.
              

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