Senate Bill S9824

                                 
BILL NUMBER: S9824

SPONSOR: SEPULVEDA
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the criminal procedure law, in relation to allowing
minor defendants to utilize electronic appearances in certain criminal
proceedings on consent when the court has determined it to be in their
interests

2.  
SOURCE OF BILL

This bill is being introduced at the request of the Unified Court
System, on the recommendation of the Chief Administrative Judge's Advi-
sory Committee on Criminal Law and Procedure.

3.  
PURPOSE OF BILL

This bill would allow minor defendants to utilize electronic appearances
for non-substantive criminal proceedings and custodial arraignments
where such a minor defendant will be released on their own recognizance
or with non-monetary conditions on consent of the court and all parties.
              

4.  
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS

Section 1 of the bill amends section 182.20(1)(b) of the Criminal Proce-
dure Law ("CPL") to add a new subparagraph (v) to delineate when minor
defendants may utilize electronic appearances at arraignments.

Section 2 of the bill amends CPL 182.20(7) to allow minor defendants to
utilize electronic appearances to attend non-substantive proceedings,
with the parties' consent, when the court has determined that doing so
is in the minor defendant's best interests, and to attend an arraignment
in accordance with the new CPL 182.20(1)(b)(v).

Section 3 of the bill sets the effective date at 60 days following
enactment.

5.  
JUSTIFICATION

Under the new CPL Article 182 that was enacted as part of the SFY 2025-
2026 New York Adopted Budget, defendants under the age of 18 were cate-
gorically prohibited from using electronic appearances. This prohibition
was based on the valid concern that minor defendants present unique
issues during court proceedings which are normally best addressed by
having them appear in person. Since the enactment of this provision,
however, multiple stakeholders including institutional defense organiza-
tions and the New York City Administration for Children's Services have
raised concerns that this prohibition is overly broad and should be
relaxed under two circumstances: to protect the best interests of the
minor and to avoid unnecessary incarcerations.

1.  
PROTECTING THE BEST INTERESTS OF MINORS

For routine appearances where significant events like a guilty plea,
sentence or hearing are not scheduled to occur mandating minors to
repeatedly appear physically in court, sometimes requiring long travel
times, may interfere with important activities like school, treatment,
work, health care, or family obligations. This bill therefore allows
virtual appearances for routine matters not involving important events
in a case to be conducted, again, only with the consent of all parties,
if the court determines on the record that a virtual appearance is in
the minor's best interests.  The basis for such a determination could
include, but would not be limited to, a finding "that a physical appear-
ance will unnecessarily interfere with the minor defendant's partic-
ipation in treatment, school, vocational training, work, family care,
health care or other similarly important activity."

This proposal also promotes increased participation in court proceedings
for minor defendants. Under current law, lawyers may waive a minor
defendant's appearance during a routine matter, to avoid the disruptions
an in-person appearance might cause. This proposal would likely elimi-
nate the need for such waivers in many cases, since a minor's partic-
ipation in a virtual court appearance would often not cause any signif-
icant interference with other important obligations.

2.  
AVOIDING UNNECESSARY INCARCERATIONS

When minor defendants are arrested after the close of normal business
hours and cannot be quickly arraigned in physical courtrooms, virtual
arraignments would allow such defendants to be quickly released without
having to be confined overnight or on a holiday or weekend when a court
may be closed. This issue arises most frequently in less populous juris-
dictions where courts are not physically open on nights or weekends and
appropriate places to confine minor defendants awaiting arraignments may
not be easily accessible.

This bill would allow virtual arraignments for minors when three condi-
tions are met.

First, such an arraignment would have to be necessary because no court
was open when a minor first became available for arraignment. Second,
all parties would have to consent to the virtual arraignment.  Finally,
the only securing order which could be imposed at such an arraignment
would be a release on recognizance or with non-monetary conditions. If a
minor defendant was potentially going to be confined, an in-person
appearance would still be required.

In sum, these two narrow allowances for virtual appearances by minor
defendants would retain the important considerations reflected in the
Legislature's decision to generally prohibit such appearances, permit-
ting them only in circumstances in which they would clearly benefit
minors.

6.  
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

This is a new bill.

7.  
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

This bill would have no fiscal impact on the State.

8.  
EFFECTIVE DATE
This bill will become effective sixty days after becoming law.