Senate Bill S6728

                                 
BILL NUMBER: S6728

SPONSOR: SCARCELLA-SPANTON
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the judiciary law and the executive law, in relation to
increasing the frequency of pretrial release data reporting

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

Bail is the amount of money defendants must post to be released from
custody until their trial. Bail is not a fine. It is not supposed to be
used as punishment. The purpose of bail is simply to ensure that defend-
ants will appear for trial and all pretrial hearings for which they must
be present.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section one: Subdivisions 5 of section 216 of the judiciary law, as
amended by section 1 of subpart G of part UU of chapter 56 of the law of
2022

              

The chief administrator of the courts, in conjunction with the division
of criminal justice services, shall collect data and report every (six)
four months regarding pretrial release and detention.  Such data and
report shall contain information categorized by age, gender, racial and
ethnic background regarding the nature of the criminal offenses, includ-
ing the top charge of each case; the number and type of charges in each
defendant's criminal rec,ord; whether the prosecutor requested that the
court fix bail, the amounts and forms of bail set by the court; the
number of individuals released on recognition; the number of individuals
released on non-monetary conditions, including the conditions imposed;
the number of individuals committed to the custody of a sheriff prior to
trial; the rates of failure to appear and rearrests disaggregated by the
amounts and forms of bail set by the court; the outcome of such cases or
dispositions; the length of the pretrial detention stay and any other
such information as the chief administrator and the divisions of crimi-
nal justice services may find necessary and appropriate.

Such report shall aggregate the data collects by county; court, includ-
ing city, town village courts; and judge. The data shall be aggregated
in order to protect the identity of individual defendants.  The report
shall be released publically and published on the websites of the office
of court administration and the division of criminal justice services.
The first report shall be published twelve months after this subdivision
shall have become a law, and shall include data from the first six
months following the enactment of this section.

Reports for subsequent periods shall be published every (six) four
months thereafter; provided that such triannual reporting period shall
begin o the effective date of the chapter of the laws of two thousand
twenty-three which amended this subdivision.

Section two: Section 837-u of the executive law, as amended by section 2
of the subpart G of part UU of chapter 56 of the laws of 2022, is
amended by the division of criminal justice services, in conjunction
with the chief with the chief administrator of the court, shall collect
data and report (annually) tri-annually regarding pretrial release and
detention. Such data and report shall contain information categorized by
age, gender, racial and ethnic background; regarding the nature of the
criminal offenses, including the top charge of each case; the number and
type of charges in each defendant's criminal record; whether the prose-
cutor requested that the court fix bail, the amounts and forms of bail
requested by the prosecutor, and the amounts and forms of bail set by
the court; the number of individuals released on recognizance; the
number of individuals released on non-monetary conditions, including the
conditions imposed; the number of individuals committed to the custody
of a sheriff prior to trial; the rates of failure to appear and rear-
rests disaggregated by the amounts and forms of bail set by the court;
the outcome of such cases or dispositions; whether the defendant was
represented by counsel at every court appearance regarding the defen-
dents securing order; the length of the pretrial detention stay and any
other such information as the chief administrator and the division of
criminal justice services may find necessary and appropriate.

Such (annual) report shall aggregate the data collected by county;
court, including city, town and village courts; and judge. The data
shall be aggregated in order to protect the identity of individual
defendants. The report shall be released publically and published on the
websites of the office of court administration and the division of crim-
inal justice services. The first report shall be published eighteen
months after this section shall have become law and shall include data
from the first twelve months following,the enactment of this section.
Reports for subsequent years hall be published ( annually on or before
the date) every four months thereafter; provided that such tri-annual
reporting shall begin on the effective date of the chapter of the laws
of two thousands twenty-three.

Section 3. This act shall take effect.immediately.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Pretrial Release Data: Key data points are missing from the annual
pretrial release report issued by the NYS Unified Court System's Office
of Court Administration and the Division of Criminal Justice.  Specif-
ically, there does not appear to be any data reported on the rates of
failure to appear (FTA)/ warrant broken down by the forms of bail set by
the courts (e.g., cash, partially secured bonds, secured bonds). This
information is critical in determining whether crime victims are
afforded justice via the accused returning to court when released on a
Partially Secured Bond (PSB). Key data points are not being
tracked/reported by the NYS Unified Court System's Office of Court
Administration.

Specifically, there does not appear to be any publicly reported data on
the following:

*No data on forms of bail set (cash/secured bonds/partially secured
bonds)

*No data on Failure to Appear (FTA)

*This is incredibly alarming because it is impossible to make sound
policy decisions on whether 'bail reform' is working when OCA data is
missing key metrics that are essentially the crux of the criminal
justice issue

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New Bill

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

To be determined.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediate.