Public Hearing - October 2, 2018
1 JOINT HEARING BEFORE THE NEW YORK STATE SENATE
STANDING COMMITTEE ON CRIME VICTIMS, CRIME AND
2 CORRECTION
AND
3 STANDING COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS
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PUBLIC HEARINGS:
5
TO EXAMINE THE STATE’S CURRENT PAROLE POLICIES AND
6 GOVERNOR CUOMO’S EXECUTIVE ORDER ALLOWING
CONDITIONAL PARDONS THAT ENABLE PAROLEES TO VOTE
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8
William P. Bennett Hicksville Community Center
9 28 West Carl Street
Hicksville, New York
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October 2, 2018, at 11:00 a.m.
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12 PRESIDING:
13 Senator Patrick M. Gallivan, Chairman
NYS Senate Standing Committee on Crime Victims,
14 Crime and Correction
15
SPONSOR:
16
Senator Elaine Phillips
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18 PRESENT:
19 Senator John J. Flanagan
New York State Senate Temporary President
20 and Majority Leader
21 Senator Philip M. Boyle
22 Senator Carl L. Marcellino
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SPEAKERS: PAGE QUESTIONS
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Barbara Connelly 16 51
3 Founder
Long Island/New York Metro Parents
4 and Other Survivors of
Murdered Victims Outreach
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Laura Ahern, Esq. 16 51
6 Executive Director
Crime Victim Center and
7 Parents for Megan's Law
8 Daniel Fitzpatrick 57 71
Treasurer
9 New York State Association of PBAs
10 James Hughes 57 71
President of Suffolk County Detectives
11 Association, and
An Executive Board Member of
12 New York State Association of PBAs
13 Pat Saunders 57 71
Sergeant in Arms
14 Suffolk County PBA
15 Dr. Jennifer Morrison 74 99
Superintendent
16 New Hyde Park-Garden City Park USFD
17 Michael Nagler, Ph.D. 74 99
Superintendent of Mineola Public
18 Schools, and
President of Nassau County
19 Council of School Superintendents
20 James Reddan 74 99
Representative of
21 New Hyde Park-Garden City Park
Committee Against Polling in Schools,
22 and the New Hyde Park Memorial
High School Parent-Teacher-Student
23 Association
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SPEAKERS: PAGE QUESTIONS
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James Royall 111 120
3 Reentry Specialist
Jared Chausow
4 Senior Policy Specialist
Brooklyn Defender Services
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1 SENATOR PHILLIPS: So if everyone could take
2 a seat, we're going to begin.
3 Thank you.
4 If everyone could take a seat, please.
5 Thank you.
6 I just had to look up and find a clock,
7 because I couldn't -- didn't know if it was morning
8 or afternoon, but it is still morning.
9 So, good morning, everyone, and thank you for
10 coming to the 7th Senate District.
11 My name is Senator Elaine Phillips.
12 I am proud to be hosting this event in my
13 Senate district today, beautiful Hicksville.
14 And thank you to the Hicksville Community
15 Center for allowing us to use this.
16 I will be introducing my colleagues in a
17 second.
18 But today's public hearing is from the Senate
19 Standing Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and
20 Correction, and the Senate Standing Committee on
21 Elections.
22 And the purpose of today's public hearing is
23 to examine both the statutory procedures parole
24 board members are required to consider when making a
25 decision, and compliance with same, as well as the
5
1 procedures used in issuing conditional pardons,
2 pursuant to Executive Order 181.
3 And my colleague, in a few minutes,
4 Senator Pat Gallivan from Western New York, will be
5 going over today's procedures in more detail.
6 But let me explain -- because I'm not on
7 either one of these committees, but let me explain
8 my involvement.
9 And my involvement, really, is taken from
10 school security, and what the impact of these
11 pardons were on our schools.
12 And I'm very fortunate to have two school
13 superintendents who I have dealt with very closely,
14 who will testify today.
15 But, you know, the most important thing that
16 we can do in today's day and age is to make sure
17 that our children are protected.
18 So you'll hear a little bit.
19 In this public hearing, we'll take a
20 little -- probably more time when it comes to the
21 impact on our schools and safety here throughout
22 New York State.
23 So without any further delay, I am truly
24 proud to introduce the Majority Leader of the
25 New York State Senate, and the Temporary President,
6
1 Senator John Flanagan.
2 SENATOR FLANAGAN: Good morning, everyone.
3 I'm delighted to be here.
4 I'm going to have to find my way to Albany
5 relatively soon, but, great to be with my
6 colleagues:
7 Senator Pat Gallivan, who's a leader, who has
8 a stellar background. Actually was a member of the
9 parole board. So he knows from whence he comes and
10 where he talks. And we're delighted to have him
11 down here.
12 And I want to thank Senator Phillips,
13 Senator Marcellino, and Senator Boyle.
14 You know, the issue that we're talking about
15 today is one that we all take very seriously.
16 And, we have looked at this from a
17 public-policy standpoint, from a governmental
18 standpoint.
19 And I have to tell you, Senator Phillips, for
20 those of you that don't really know her, she's not
21 shy. She's not shy at all. She's outspoken.
22 And we spoke at great length about this,
23 privately, within our Conference, and now publicly,
24 about this type of issue.
25 And this is the type of thing where we are
7
1 proud to be public servants and elected officials,
2 but we also think we have an extraordinary
3 responsibility to lay out what is exactly involved;
4 where things are going well, where they're not.
5 We welcome the testimony of the folks that
6 are here.
7 And I'm hoping that we can make substantial
8 progress with your input.
9 And, I'm -- I just want to say thank you to
10 all of you for being here.
11 And a particular thanks to Senator Gallivan
12 and Senator Phillips.
13 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Senator Boyle.
14 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you, Senator.
15 I'd like to thank, senator Phillips for her
16 leadership on this very important issue;
17 Senator Marcellino, and, of course,
18 Pat Gallivan/Senator Gallivan, for traveling this
19 way to host this hearing.
20 And, of course, John Flanagan, our leader.
21 This is a topic that I didn't think any of us
22 thought was going to be a big deal a year ago.
23 A couple sessions ago, I introduced
24 legislation, after some of the violence and some of
25 the things that were going on in our schools, about
8
1 making it illegal to have a polling place in a
2 school while school was in session.
3 Obviously, on the Presidential election,
4 there's -- the schools are closed. But for the
5 other ones, they're often open.
6 Never in a million years at that time, three
7 or four years ago, did I think that we'd be facing
8 the prospect of criminals going into our schools,
9 with students in classroom, nearby, on polling -- on
10 Election Day.
11 So, I look forward to the testimony of our
12 experts today, to learn what their feelings are on
13 this, and, of course, look for potential legislation
14 to keep our children safe, most importantly, and
15 families of victims getting the due process they
16 deserve.
17 Thank you so much.
18 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you, Senator Boyle.
19 Senator Carl Marcellino.
20 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you very much.
21 Thank you for coming out, and I welcome the
22 attendance. It's good to see people here interested
23 in the process.
24 We're here to listen.
25 I'm here to listen, I want to hear your
9
1 comments, as to what goes on, and what you think we
2 should be doing, and what you think laws should look
3 like that might affect this process, and make it a
4 better process, so we don't have mistakes happening,
5 and we don't have people let out who, frankly,
6 shouldn't be.
7 And perhaps we can clarify the voting
8 process, as to how they can vote, and when they can
9 vote.
10 So let's hear the testimony.
11 I'm very willing, and ready to listen.
12 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Great. Thank you,
13 Senator.
14 Senator Pat Gallivan, all the way from
15 Western New York.
16 So thank you, Senator Gallivan, for traveling
17 so far.
18 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you, Senator, and to
19 all my colleagues who are here today.
20 I do appreciate the hospitality; your
21 willingness to host this hearing on what I think is
22 a very important topic.
23 So if I -- thank you for your patience.
24 I need just a few minutes to go through a few
25 things, and then we'll jump right into it.
10
1 So, the hearing came about as a result of two
2 different things:
3 So, first, we saw the release -- several
4 high-profile releases by the parole board of
5 cop-killers, and it raised concerns.
6 Many of us, our constituents had reached out
7 to us, questioning, how can this happen?
8 And so, as we looked into it, and began to
9 focus on the parole board, what my thought was, as
10 Chair of Crime Victims, Crime and Correction
11 Committee, and based on my experience, I had the
12 belief, while some of this is subjective, there are
13 standards in the law and factors that must be
14 considered.
15 And I don't think that, in every single case,
16 several members of the parole board followed the
17 criteria in the law.
18 And I think it's an obligation of our
19 Committee to look at it.
20 So the first area that we are looking at
21 specifically, is the standards of release for --
22 that is, for somebody to be considered for release
23 from parole, and, the factors that must be
24 considered, and the parole board's compliance with
25 that.
11
1 That's the first topic.
2 The second topic that is part of this
3 hearing, that is done in conjunction with the Senate
4 Standing Committee on Elections, back on April 18th,
5 the Governor issued Executive Order 181, that would
6 grant conditional pardon to parolees for the right
7 to vote.
8 It is, again, many of us had constituents
9 reach out to us. Many of us shared the same belief.
10 I won't put words in my colleagues' mouths,
11 but, I believe that the Governor usurped the
12 authority of the Legislature. That the
13 Constitution, and in particular, the power of
14 clemency and pardon, was not intended to do it in a
15 blanket fashion, or in a mass fashion.
16 It was to look at individual injustices.
17 The lawmakers of this state, through the
18 election law, placed several prohibitions on voting
19 under certain circumstances.
20 And, this is something that, in my belief,
21 should be debated, it should be -- it should be
22 debated, we should look at all the considerations,
23 hear from everybody, and then make an ultimate
24 legislative decision.
25 So the focus is on the gov -- the focus is on
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1 the Governor's executive order and the process.
2 This is not intended to be a debate, or focus
3 on whether or not parolees should have the right to
4 vote.
5 It's the process.
6 And in some media accounts, and by some
7 others that have stood up in protest, it's been
8 mischaracterized.
9 So those are two different -- different
10 areas.
11 Now, we conducted two hearings, one in Albany
12 yesterday, and then, of course, we are here today.
13 They're to be taken as one.
14 So we won't go into great detail into both
15 areas today.
16 We spent a good part of yesterday in that
17 first area.
18 We heard from a former parole board member.
19 We examined many of the issues related to parole
20 release and the standards.
21 Today we will hear, our first panel will
22 focus a little bit more in the first area.
23 And then, subsequently, we'll spend a little
24 bit more time on the Governor's executive order.
25 And then, of course, as we wrap it up, we
13
1 will probably touch on both areas again.
2 But, without us going into what the law says
3 about the standards of release, we did do that
4 yesterday.
5 And all of this is videotaped. It's being
6 streamed live.
7 Both yesterday's hearing and today's hearing
8 will be available on the Senate website. It will be
9 part of the record.
10 All the testimony will be part of the record.
11 A report will be issued afterwards for
12 everybody.
13 And my hope is, that we'll come up with
14 recommendations, so that the questions that we are
15 asking, we don't have to ask in the future, and
16 we're dealing with some of the problems, and,
17 hopefully, we can do government in a better way.
18 Now, the committees are the ones that have
19 called this hearing.
20 It's important to know that every member of
21 the Committee, the Crime and Corrections Committee,
22 was personally invited.
23 Despite media reports, I personally contacted
24 several members of the Minority, and personally
25 invited them.
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1 I had several conversations with one of the
2 committee members.
3 The Ranking Member, in the media account, had
4 said that he wasn't contacted.
5 That is not accurate.
6 We contacted their office multiple times.
7 I did not get a return call.
8 And I'm very disappointed that they chose not
9 to participate.
10 They could walk in and participate, and I'd
11 welcome that.
12 We also invited the Executive, the Governor's
13 Office, to testify, and the chairwoman of parole,
14 and the commissioner of department of corrections
15 and community supervision.
16 They elected not to testify; however, we do
17 have -- we do have written testimony from each of
18 them that was entered into the record yesterday, as
19 well as responses to a request for a tremendous
20 amount of records related to both areas.
21 And, I am grateful that they did endeavor to
22 comply with our request for records. It's not
23 complete yet.
24 They did submit a substantial amount of
25 records that, again, will all be entered into the
15
1 official record, and be made available to everybody.
2 But, they did have the opportunity to appear
3 in person, and, unfortunately, they are not here.
4 So, we will move into this.
5 SENATOR PHILLIPS: (Indiscernible)
6 housekeeping.
7 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Okay. One other thing?
8 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Yes.
9 Oh, one housekeeping.
10 One, please, make sure you know where the
11 exits are.
12 And, two, I am going to be the person that
13 keeps us on time.
14 So we're asking each panel group to stick to
15 about 10 minutes, if you would, please, just for
16 those that are waiting.
17 So, thank you.
18 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Yeah.
19 So what we'll do, and we'll ask each panel
20 member, we do -- I know that you've submitted
21 written testimony, which will be entered into the
22 record in its entirety, available to everybody on
23 the website, and the report afterwards.
24 And it would be -- if you're able to do it,
25 it would be great if you just talked about the high
16
1 points.
2 I do know that, I forget, that you did want
3 to read from somebody that's a victim, that
4 submitted something to you, and that's fine.
5 OFF-CAMERA SPEAKER: (Indiscernible.)
6 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Oh, okay. Got it.
7 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: Yeah, I have two
8 victims.
9 SENATOR GALLIVAN: And that's fine.
10 But, nonetheless, it would be best if you
11 just tell us what your concerns are, and, let us
12 answer some questions, and we can move through that,
13 if possible.
14 So our first panel is:
15 Barbara Connelly, who's the founder of the
16 Long Island/New York Metro Parents and Other
17 Survivors of Murdered Victims Outreach;
18 And, Laura Ahern, executive director of the
19 Crime Victim Center and Parents for Megan's Law.
20 And the reason that victims are relevant to
21 this is that, the factors that the parole board
22 must -- among the factors the parole board must
23 consider is what the victims have to say.
24 The victims have the right to enter a victim
25 impact statement; either meet with a member of the
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1 parole board or submit a written testimony to the
2 parole board.
3 And that is the area that we are looking to
4 delve into with you.
5 So it doesn't matter to us which one of you
6 starts.
7 Alphabetical, perhaps? Or right to left?
8 Your choice. Go right ahead.
9 Thank you for being here.
10 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: Good morning.
11 My name is Laura Ahern. I'm the executive
12 director of the Crime Victim Center.
13 I am so thankful that you are giving me an
14 opportunity to give victims a voice.
15 Good morning, Senate Majority Leader,
16 Senator John Flanagan;
17 Chairperson of the Committee on Crime
18 Victims, Crime and Correction, Senator Gallivan;
19 Senators Marcellino, Phillips, and
20 Senator Boyle;
21 And distinguished colleagues and guests.
22 I have worked with over 25,000 victims of
23 violent crime, and that violent crime includes
24 victims of sexual assault, domestic violence,
25 stalking, gang violence, assault, arson, vehicular
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1 crimes, federal crimes, terrorism, and survivors of
2 homicide, including the surviving family members of
3 MS-13 victims in Brentwood.
4 It is really my honor to have this
5 opportunity to offer testimony on behalf of crime
6 victims and surviving family members.
7 I'm going to start with New York State parole
8 policies and procedures.
9 In May of 1971, Herman Bell was part of a
10 group that lured and ambushed two New York City
11 police officers, shooting them both in the back and
12 killing them.
13 Three months after he murdered
14 Officers Piagentini and Jones, Mr. Bell murdered
15 San Francisco Police Sergeant John Young in his
16 station house.
17 His guilt and actions were never in dispute.
18 Their families had to endure eight parole
19 board hearings.
20 And in the last hearing, by a 2-1 margin,
21 Bell was granted parole.
22 The response was swift from the family and
23 police unions across the country.
24 What is particularly telling, however, was
25 the response from two high-profile elected officials
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1 in New York:
2 Mayor de Blasio, who urged the state parole
3 board to reconsider its tragic and incomprehensible
4 decision.
5 He wrote to the board, that murdering a
6 police officer in cold blood is a crime beyond the
7 frontiers of rehabilitation or redemption.
8 Governor Cuomo himself, when asked if he
9 supported the parole board's decision to release
10 Bell, said, if he were on it, he wouldn't have.
11 Herman Bell should have never been released.
12 His release appears inconsistent with
13 New York State statutory procedures regarding
14 discretionary release on parole.
15 Pursuant to the statute, an inmate's release
16 must not be incompatible with the welfare of
17 society, and will not so deprecate the seriousness
18 of his crime as to undermine respect for law.
19 For some crimes, parole must not be an
20 option.
21 The current parole board procedures, when
22 considering whether to deny or grant parole to an
23 inmate, are revictimizing victims and surviving
24 family members.
25 Every two years, victims -- at least every
20
1 two years, victims and surviving family members are
2 forced to relive the trauma associated with the
3 often brutal crimes that are committed against them
4 or their loved one.
5 For victims and surviving family members,
6 this process effectively amounts to a
7 state-scheduled posttraumatic stress disorder,
8 wherein victims or loved ones themselves feel
9 sentenced themselves to have to relive and recount
10 the horrific details of the most tragic and hurtful
11 events in their lifetime.
12 I'm now going to read a statement from
13 surviving family members of 13-year-old
14 Kelly Ann Tinyes, and a statement from
15 Jennifer Brooks, who was 10 years old when the
16 South Shore rapist kidnapped her from her home to
17 rape her.
18 Both statements support the need to effect
19 significant changes in the New York State Parole
20 Board's process, to prevent victims and family
21 members from further enduring even more suffering,
22 not only related to the individual process of having
23 to appear before the parole board, but the process
24 leading up to that.
25 On March 3, 1989, Robert Golub lured
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1 13-year-old Kelly Ann Tinyes to his home, where he
2 beat, stabbed, mutilated, and strangled her.
3 He then put her body in a garbage bag like
4 she was trash, and hid her in the basement.
5 She was found the next day.
6 It was a horribly heinous crime, one he
7 should spend the rest of his life in prison for.
8 I'm going to read a statement from
9 Richard Tinyes, Senior, Kelly Ann Tinyes's father,
10 dated October 1, 2018, which is yesterday.
11 "To Whom It May Concern:
12 "On March 3, 1989, our beautiful daughter
13 Kelly Ann Tinyes was brutally murdered in the Golub
14 house down the block from where we live.
15 "Robert Golub was there when Kelly entered
16 the house.
17 "Robert Golub was waiting for her, and he
18 beat her head and body so badly, we had to close her
19 coffin at the funeral.
20 "Kelly's head was beaten so badly it was
21 swollen to almost twice its normal size.
22 "He then took a knife, and cut her throat,
23 slashed her breast numerous times, and then he took
24 the knives and cut her vagina to her anus.
25 "Robert Golub is coming up for parole again
22
1 in November. And every two years, this family has
2 to endure reliving what he did to Kelly for months
3 before the parole hearing."
4 Two years is torment to their family.
5 It should at least be every five years.
6 "At the first parole hearing, they were
7 allowed to bring" -- "we were allowed to bring
8 numerous family members with us for support.
9 "Now we're only allowed to bring immediate
10 family members, which is four people, and two
11 additional relatives, who aren't allowed to speak.
12 "This has affected our lives in so many ways.
13 "My business was affected because no one
14 wanted to face the worst nightmare.
15 "No matter where I went, people would stare,
16 or some people would ask if I was Richard Tinyes.
17 "Wherever I went, Aruba; Florida; Charlotte,
18 North Carolina; people would recognize us.
19 "My wife, Vicki, is very upset, because she
20 believes there's a chance that Robert Golub could be
21 released on parole.
22 "The State should make parole hearings every
23 five years for murderers, to give peace to victims'
24 families.
25 "The families should also be able to bring
23
1 more people with them for support, and those people
2 should be allowed to be heard.
3 "Sincerely,
4 "The Tinyes family."
5 After a brief introduction, I'm going to read
6 an excerpt from a statement by
7 Ms. Jennifer Brooks.
8 The full statement is provided in your
9 packet.
10 On June 22, 1988, the South Shore rapist,
11 Scott Carroll, was sentenced to 650 years in prison
12 for terrorizing and sexually assaulting multiple
13 women.
14 He kidnapped and raped a 10-year-old child.
15 That child was named Jennifer Brooks.
16 I'm now going to read an excerpt -- excerpts
17 from Jennifer Brooks' statement, which are dated
18 October 1, 2018, yesterday.
19 "My name is Jennifer Brooks, and in 1986
20 I became the youngest victim of the South Shore
21 rapist.
22 "I was 10 years old when he kidnapped me from
23 my bedroom and took me to an empty lot to rape me.
24 "I was lucky that he was eventually caught
25 and charged in four counties throughout New York and
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1 Florida.
2 "It went to trial in three of those counties,
3 all leading up to convictions on multiple counts of
4 rape, attempted rape, burglary, sodomy, and in one
5 case, attempted murder.
6 "For reasons I will never understand, this
7 man, who was in his 20s at the time of his
8 sentencing, and was out on parole from a burglary
9 conviction when he raped all of us, and was given
10 the chance of parole starting when he was now 51,
11 plenty of the time to pick up where he left off, and
12 continue raping little girls and women.
13 "I was glad to be given an opportunity to
14 speak and deliver a victim impact statement.
15 "It was extremely difficult for me, but
16 I believed it did matter, so I did it.
17 "The first time, I was told a member of the
18 parole board was going to be there.
19 "It wasn't explained to me until afterwards
20 that the people in the room were not members of the
21 parole board who would hear his case, and were just
22 going to write a transcript of what I said, to be
23 delivered to them.
24 "I could have just written it myself if
25 I would have known.
25
1 "But, did my in-person appearance matter?
2 "Did it carry any weight than if I just had
3 written a statement?
4 "I couldn't get any straight answers about
5 it.
6 "Numerous times over the years, I wrote to
7 the victims' assistance e-mail address with
8 questions.
9 "Sometimes, I got no response back at all.
10 "When I got responses, they were always
11 unsigned, and I had no idea who I was talking to,
12 and the answers were generally cold and not helpful.
13 "It's a terrifying prospect realizing that,
14 every year or two, you have to freshly beg for
15 strangers to care about you enough to keep the men
16 who terrorized you and dozens of other women away
17 from society.
18 "So far, parole has come up every two years,
19 but I've been told that it can be changed to yearly
20 at any time.
21 "Every time it comes up, I am a mess for
22 months, stressed out like crazy about what I would
23 ever do if this guy is set free.
24 "I'm a single mom of an 11-year-old daughter,
25 and I have no choice but to live where he raped me
26
1 and where he still has family.
2 "Three years ago I had a close call.
3 I called to find out whether the parole board made
4 its decision, and was told that they got an
5 extension because they wanted to see more of his
6 trial records, particularly the sentencing notes
7 which were not in the files because they had been
8 destroyed after a certain number of years, a fact
9 that still stuns me.
10 "That was October, and I was told I should
11 get a decision right around Christmas.
12 "Preparing for Christmas was miserable that
13 year.
14 "It broke me apart that I had sent in my
15 victim's impact statement, describing what this man
16 had done to me, and how he had ripped my life apart,
17 and that it wasn't enough.
18 "The parole board had heard all that, and
19 were seriously considering setting him loose anyway.
20 "Thank God they didn't, but the time for
21 parole came up. I went all out.
22 "Since my story didn't matter enough last
23 time, I asked everyone I could to" -- "everyone
24 I could think of to write letters.
25 "I never got instructions about where to send
27
1 the letters.
2 "So, at first, they were all e-mailing to the
3 same e-mail address that I was, and getting no
4 responses. And, finally, I found a website that was
5 meant for this type of use.
6 "However, right away, friends started telling
7 me that the form was broken. It was rejecting
8 letters with nearly any form of punctuation, like
9 apostrophes or quotation marks. It was severely
10 limiting the word count of submissions to about
11 one paragraph.
12 "Many of my friends gave up because, no
13 matter what they sent, they couldn't get it to go
14 through.
15 "I'm also told to call in each day, after a
16 certain date, to find out the decision, or, wait for
17 a letter in the mail.
18 "Why?
19 "When you have cases like this, how hard
20 would it be to have someone make a phone call right
21 away to let me know, so I can sleep again, or
22 prepare for the worst.
23 "Getting any kind of advice or real answers
24 has just been about impossible.
25 "And to this day, I have no idea what the
28
1 parole board considers or doesn't consider, and what
2 they were thinking before they nearly set a serial
3 rapist free.
4 "What I want more than anything are two
5 things:
6 "Much longer periods between parole hearings
7 and complete transparency about the process.
8 "I want to speak with at least one member of
9 the parole board that's speaking to him. I want
10 them to hear my voice, not just his.
11 "I want" -- "I want clear instructions about
12 what the parole board considers, and I want
13 compassion and support during this process.
14 "It shouldn't feel like I'm speaking to a
15 neutral third party when I contact victims'
16 assistance.
17 "I want them to hear that I'm staying up till
18 dawn every single day, and working near my front
19 window so I can watch the house and keep my daughter
20 safe.
21 "I want them to understand that I spent
22 four years trapped in my house with agoraphobia, and
23 I changed my name to make it harder for him to find
24 me.
25 "I want them to see how hard I fight every
29
1 single day for my sanity and to live in this world.
2 "And I want to believe that what happened to
3 me matters, and that it will be used to make sure
4 that it doesn't ever happen again to the next
5 10-year-old girl.
6 "Thank you for your consideration."
7 So based on our work at the Crime Victims
8 Center, with victims of violent crime, like Jenna,
9 and also surviving family members like the Tinyes
10 family, and surviving family members of MS-13 gang
11 victims, I just have some basic recommendations, and
12 this is on page 7 of my testimony.
13 Pursuant to the statute, an inmate's release
14 must not be incompatible with the welfare of
15 society, and will not so deprecate the seriousness
16 of his crime as to undermine respect for the law.
17 For some crimes, such as the murder of police
18 officers, the brutal sexual assault and murder of
19 Kelly Ann Tinyes, and the kidnapping and rape of
20 10-year-old Jenna Brooks by the South Shore rapist,
21 parole must not be an option for those types of
22 heinous violent crimes.
23 Number two: Parole hearings should not be
24 granted at least every two years.
25 Instead, there should be consideration to
30
1 longer periods in between, such as maybe five years
2 for murderers and rapists, to prevent
3 revictimization.
4 Number three: Surviving family members
5 should be able to be accompanied to parole hearings
6 by more than immediate family members, such as
7 cousins and friends of the victim, for support, and
8 those people should be allowed to be heard.
9 Number four: Parole board victim-assistance
10 services should be more responsive and more
11 transparent to address victims' and surviving family
12 members' concerns.
13 Clear instructions about the process need to
14 be provided to every victim and surviving family
15 member. And if procedures are not followed, there
16 needs to be a complaint process, a real complaint
17 process.
18 A real person answering the phone.
19 A real person reading the e-mails that are
20 coming from tortured family members.
21 Victims-assistance e-mails have to be
22 responded to, and questions have to be clearly
23 answered.
24 Electronic forms designed to provide
25 supporters of victims an opportunity to write
31
1 letters have to always be functional, and there has
2 to be quality control. Someone has to be watching
3 that those e-mails are actually being read and
4 responded to.
5 Victim-notification process should be
6 automated via e-mail, like VINE is, or, an automated
7 call.
8 So, victims-information notification every
9 day, you can actually register to have a
10 notification anytime inmate status changes.
11 But you can do the same for parole hearings
12 as well, and decisions on whether or not they're
13 going to release.
14 So, in closing, I would like to also express
15 our strong opposition to Governor Cuomo's 2018
16 executive order, enabling paroles to vote, as it
17 grants registered sex offenders access to schools
18 which serve as polling places.
19 School grounds where children play and
20 congregate must be a sanctuary from those who
21 already are determined by New York State corrections
22 law, "Meghan's Law," to pose a risk to public
23 safety.
24 Whether that risk is a low risk, a moderate
25 risk, or a high risk, those are individuals that are
32
1 deemed to pose a risk to public safety by law.
2 The implications of this order potentially
3 place children and our most vulnerable at increased
4 risk, and adequate safeguards are not currently in
5 place.
6 Registered sex offenders should not be
7 granted access to our schools.
8 If sex offenders on parole, as well as other
9 parolees convicted of violent crimes, wish to
10 exercise their right to vote, we believe they should
11 be given absentee ballots, postage-paid if they're
12 indigent, to cast their ballots.
13 Thank you for this opportunity to speak on
14 behalf of the victims we represent and the
15 communities we serve.
16 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Barbara.
17 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you, Laura.
18 BARBARA CONNELLY: Thank you.
19 Well, it's almost afternoon, but I'll say,
20 good morning.
21 Can you hear me okay?
22 SENATOR GALLIVAN: I can, yes.
23 BARBARA CONNELLY: Okay.
24 I want to thank Senator Marcellino,
25 Senator Phillips, Senator Gallivan,
33
1 Senator Flanagan, and Senator Boyle.
2 I find it very important at this time in my
3 life, and in other victims' lives, that this hearing
4 is taking place.
5 I will say one thing: Laura has echoed a lot
6 of what has been going on in my life, my family's
7 life, and at least six other families who have had a
8 murderer released in the last six months.
9 So these are important things.
10 I was asked to tell a little bit about
11 myself, and then to discuss the reasons what I think
12 that would be important.
13 So let me just start with this:
14 My name is Barbara Connelly, and I am a
15 mother of Kathleen, James, Patricia, Barbara, and
16 Terrence (ph.). I'm the widow of James P. Connelly.
17 To make this easier on all of us, I chose to
18 submit a timeline before and after January 1979 with
19 the parole board, as a view of the Connelly family's
20 interaction with the New York State Parole Board and
21 its appointed commissioners.
22 So I'll start this way:
23 In 1972, of May, we moved to Long Island.
24 In 1974, April, we bought a house in Shirley.
25 1976, in January, that house burnt down. We
34
1 lost everything that we ever had; every little thing
2 that our children made in kindergarten to put on the
3 Christmas trees, every little Mother's Day gift,
4 every little Father's Day's gift.
5 We lost everything, but our family, all of
6 it, was safe.
7 A teenaged boy named Jimmy Murray was hit by
8 a car, and died the same night our house burnt down.
9 He had called to see if my daughter Kathleen
10 could go out for pizza with him and his friends.
11 It was the night before school would start,
12 after Christmas vacation.
13 We didn't let her go.
14 The next day, the school asked if there was
15 anything they could do for us.
16 They knew we lost everything in a fire;
17 clothing, Christmas gifts, pictures, and every
18 memento, as I said.
19 We asked that they, please, help the family
20 of Jimmy Murray. We had insurance.
21 1974 to 1978, after rebuilding home and life,
22 we lived like most other families at the time: Dad
23 worked, mom stayed home, we took care of the house,
24 home, and family, even mother watering the new lawn
25 every single day, 30 minutes a day, keeping
35
1 (indiscernible) the sprinkler.
2 I hated it. Couldn't wait till he got home
3 on the weekends.
4 My husband was general manager of a small but
5 well-placed electronics firm.
6 In May 1978 he received a sizable raise,
7 which included a car, and soon to include paid
8 family vacations.
9 Life was beginning to look pretty prosperous
10 for a family of seven.
11 Our remaining -- our oldest child was in
12 Catholic high school, our remaining four in public
13 school.
14 Life was beginning to look pretty good.
15 We had a pet dog, like everyone, and mom
16 taught catechism every week.
17 For three years, we had three Christmas
18 pageants, which my class participated in and the
19 families attended, in our home.
20 1978, Christmastime.
21 I share this part because it's the most
22 important in our lives. It's important for you to
23 know who we are, and where we were, before Jimmy was
24 murdered.
25 I told my children to make lists, and we
36
1 would pick five things from each list.
2 They were to be given allowance, to buy each
3 of the siblings a separate gift.
4 We did that every year, and it was an annual
5 outing.
6 They decided to buy mom an identification
7 bracelet with their money.
8 When they found one they liked, they were
9 told it would cost additional money to have it
10 engraved.
11 The most they could afford, after paying for
12 it, was ten letters.
13 All of them had chipped in $5 already.
14 If they had the engraving done, they wouldn't
15 have enough to buy a gift for each other.
16 Kathleen and Jimmy chose the engraving. They
17 wouldn't buy each other a gift.
18 The front of the bracelet was easy. It says
19 "Mom."
20 They all struggled for the inscription for
21 the back.
22 I was told, for two hours, between the oldest
23 of them, they could only go back and forth, because
24 they only had put in seven letters.
25 They wanted to put all five of their names,
37
1 but I can't honestly say which of them came up with
2 "Love'Us," seven letters, with an apostrophe.
3 I had re-read their lists on the 23rd of
4 December, and for some unknown reason, bought each
5 of them one more thing and tagged it "From Santa."
6 Cathy wanted long peacock-feather earrings.
7 Jimmy wanted a suede head hat.
8 Both gifts I was opposed to, but I did it
9 anyway.
10 I will never forget the picture of that
11 Christmas Eve, even when my husband and I watched
12 them open their gifts, Cathy and Jimmy in
13 particular.
14 They both looked at each other, and with
15 surprised faces, and they said, You said you
16 wouldn't! We weren't going to.
17 Cathy was the first to answer, "I didn't!"
18 Everyone looked at me.
19 You see, they had made a pact, their last
20 pact.
21 I was Santa, they knew it.
22 Mom, their mom, would never buy the hat, and
23 the earrings.
24 So, you buy it for me, Jimmy, and I'll buy it
25 for you, which got changed due to the engraving on
38
1 the bracelet.
2 Dad and mom did not know about the pact, but,
3 somewhere, somehow, mom bought them each a Santa
4 gift.
5 "The happiest Christmas, ever." They have
6 all said it.
7 Cathy said, they all talked about how lucky
8 they were, because they had friends who weren't
9 going to have as much as they.
10 Cathy used her gift-allowance money for the
11 younger kids' gifts, and put Jimmy's name on them.
12 Jimmy had a friend, Al Young, who was going
13 to have a baby, and he had lost his job just before
14 Christmas.
15 Jimmy used his money for them, to help them.
16 I only learned that after 1979.
17 1979, January, Jimmy was murdered at the age
18 of 15, on January 23, 1979, by 19-year-old
19 John Duffy.
20 He was chased, and stabbed more than 22 times
21 in his head, heart, lungs, and back, according to
22 the Nassau County Medical Examiner report.
23 Lastly, his throat was cut three times.
24 He was left bleeding alone in the cold night.
25 The murderer ran, lied, received help from
39
1 family and known mob affiliates in Queens, and
2 disappeared for 18 months.
3 My 35-year-old husband had a heart attack at
4 the morgue.
5 They didn't recognize it was a heart attack.
6 They gave him a couple of shots of scotch and
7 they thought it was going to help him.
8 No one knew.
9 He was identifying our son, and he wouldn't
10 let me go with him.
11 He never worked again.
12 Never.
13 We lost our home, our car, and our financial
14 stability. Some of us, our health. Not even enough
15 to pay for a funeral.
16 1980, July, John Duffy returned and turned
17 himself in with an attorney.
18 He was let out on bail.
19 1980, November, I started a support group
20 called "FAITH"; Friends Aiding in the Healing, for
21 parents whose children died in all kind of ways --
22 accidents, cancer, other illnesses, including
23 suicide -- in Mastic and Shirley. We met in
24 St. Jude's Church.
25 I couldn't teach religion classes any longer.
40
1 It wasn't going be easy to say "turn the other
2 cheek."
3 Through that group, I was able to give
4 information on how many children were ill, or died
5 of cancer, to local politicians who were
6 investigating the quality of water in our area.
7 I had the only compiled list, as the parents
8 were members of the support group at the time.
9 That was because of Jimmy.
10 1981, January, while out on bail, Duffy
11 attacked someone else with a weapon. She was
12 hospitalized. She was from Huntington.
13 He used a cousin's name, was placed on bail,
14 and "I guess he slipped through the cracks," they
15 said.
16 1981, April, I co-founded the first support
17 group for homicide survivors with another family,
18 Long Island/New York Parents of Murdered Children.
19 It was the third national chapter.
20 A name change in 1995 to Long Island/New York
21 Parents and Other Survivors of Murdered Victims
22 Outreach.
23 I had read about a family in "People
24 Magazine" in March of 1981.
25 I wrote them a letter, and the rest is
41
1 history. It was the first Parents of Murdered
2 Children meeting in Ohio.
3 1981, October to November, Duffy was tried
4 and convicted of murder. Finally.
5 He had a lawyer, Herb Lyons (ph.), a
6 well-known mob lawyer.
7 The second victim dropped her charges. She
8 thought that he was going to stay in prison for a
9 long time.
10 He was imprisoned that day, and waiting to be
11 sentenced. He refused seven weeks to show up for
12 sentencing.
13 1982, January, almost three years to the date
14 he killed our Jimmy, he was sentenced, finally, to
15 20 to life.
16 Even though the ADA asked for 25 to life, the
17 judge "felt bad," he said, in the sentencing minutes
18 that had got lost, for us too. He felt bad for
19 sentencing a young man to life in prison.
20 He never mentioned our Jimmy.
21 In those years, we were not allowed to speak
22 at sentencing.
23 We had nothing that could be said.
24 Our shattered hearts have never been
25 repaired.
42
1 We go on.
2 1987, February, I became a widow, with a
3 16-year-old child to raise.
4 2001, September 11th, first parole hearing
5 for John Duffy.
6 My picture and my son was on the first
7 edition of "News Day" that day. It was split with a
8 picture of somebody they said -- I think they said,
9 "Criminal within," and it was talking about violence
10 and terrorism.
11 My picture.
12 It was postponed until October 11, 2011 --
13 2001.
14 The first parole hearing, there are only five
15 of us now, four children and mom.
16 We promised my husband we would fight his
17 release.
18 We did, all the way up until July 2018.
19 2016, July, a notice of decision to release
20 him, and then an immediate rescission hearing was
21 imposed.
22 It was both based on information discovered,
23 which had not been given to the parole board in 2001
24 and 2007.
25 Videotapes, which were parts of our impact
43
1 hearings we had submitted, but they were overlooked.
2 2018, July 5th, Office of Victim Assistance,
3 telephone call.
4 The New York State court overturns the
5 New York State Parole Board's rescission hearing of
6 December 16th.
7 2018, July 7th, July 8th, July 9th,
8 July 10th, July 11th, July 14th, July 15th, I argued
9 with the New York State Attorney General's counsel.
10 Why, why, were they not asking the New York
11 State Supreme Court for a leave of their decision?
12 They told me it was being considered.
13 Because that decision for John Duffy was
14 based on a 2016 Article 78, he would be due to go
15 out any day, they kept telling me.
16 July 18, 2018, I had a letter from OVA.
17 "He will be released."
18 Nothing else.
19 No date. None "around."
20 Contact this person.
21 Nothing.
22 I have proof of every single thing I'm
23 speaking about.
24 July -- 2018, July 24th, we found out,
25 online, he was released.
44
1 He was either released the 18th and 19th, the
2 20th or 21st, the 22nd, the 23rd, or the 24th,
3 because it says his leave picture was taken on
4 July 18th.
5 But, they told me on the telephone, OVA,
6 Janet Koupash, that, no, he was let out on the 24th,
7 one of six violent felons released in the last five
8 months.
9 I know this is cutting into the 10 minutes
10 allotted each of us.
11 I've gone over it for days. It's almost
12 impossible to stay focused at times.
13 I needed to explain why I was involved with
14 the parole board.
15 I wanted you to see through a large window of
16 our life that brought us there.
17 Please ask me about the five things I have
18 listed.
19 Ask what I would change about the New York
20 State Parole Board.
21 We know it better than most families. We
22 were in front of it eight times, from 2011 to 2015.
23 Each time he would be denied, he filed
24 Article 78s, almost every time, which were denied.
25 He had his 2015 hearing late, as he was still
45
1 waiting for another Article 78 decision.
2 We had five more parole impact hearings,
3 every six months, from 2015.
4 All together, we had 13 hearings in 16 years.
5 He was able to postpone, just like he did his
6 sentencing, and parole-commissioner shop.
7 He would go in. If he didn't like who was
8 there, he would step out and say, I'm not being
9 heard today.
10 He did that four times.
11 He should not, he should not, have been
12 allowed to do that.
13 I attended every hearing, except July 5,
14 2018, when Governor Andrew Cuomo closed the
15 Long Island roads due to the storm.
16 It killed me that I lived in Shirley.
17 My daughter Kathleen lived in Babylon.
18 Her husband drove us through that storm, to
19 Hempstead, I think it was, Fulton Street, and
20 Kathleen gave her impact statement.
21 I had a phone interview that same afternoon,
22 with the same parole commissioner that Kathleen met
23 with.
24 And they were not prepared.
25 They mixed up our names. They mixed up my
46
1 son's name. They mixed up my husband's name.
2 At one point they said, "Your brother John."
3 John was the murderer.
4 In 16 years, we had 13 parole impact
5 hearings.
6 He was released. We found out online.
7 The letter that I have did not give me a
8 date.
9 We blame a parole board commissioner, and I'm
10 going to say her name here: Christina Hernandez.
11 We blame the process that should have been
12 followed, and was not.
13 I have requested FOIL information in July.
14 I have not received it yet.
15 I would like you to ask me about the
16 following:
17 The weight of the inmate program, in example,
18 the COMPAS.
19 I contacted the gentleman who developed the
20 COMPAS program on the date that I knew there was
21 going to be rescission.
22 He told me: It wasn't made for murderers.
23 It was made for inmates.
24 And that he did advise, that when they
25 consider COMPAS, they should add 15 to 20 percent
47
1 more, against.
2 They don't.
3 Parole board commissioners, twisting and
4 twisting verbal input, specifically, to minimize
5 crime during an inmate's hearing to ensure release.
6 Christina Hernandez, in the hearing, said to
7 him: Well, it says here, 10 times that you stabbed
8 him.
9 How dare she put that in that hearing for
10 him.
11 He stabbed my son 22 times, and it's written
12 everywhere.
13 Plus, plus cut my son's throat.
14 The necessity to amend Criminal Procedure
15 Law 380.50, the notification to victims prior to
16 inmate release from prison, "Jenna's Law," must be
17 amended.
18 The notification today that we get when
19 somebody is to be released from prison, a violent
20 offender, we get VINE calling us six hours after
21 they get the information.
22 We found it out online.
23 We still hadn't gotten the letter from OVA.
24 The letter from OVA was mailed on the 25th.
25 He was already out.
48
1 There should be a "parole board commissioner"
2 checklist as they're going through their hearings,
3 to make the procedure crucial to our well-being when
4 a murderer is to be heard, with each checked piece
5 of review information, and provided to victim
6 survivors.
7 Also, there should be similar, but not
8 including, a handbook for families and friends of
9 victims, just like the handbook for families and
10 friends of inmates.
11 I am trying to put one together.
12 For all these years, for almost 38 years,
13 I've been the voice of the victims, helping to try
14 to do these things for people.
15 When up in Janet Koupash's office, OVA, Well,
16 Barbara, what do you think we should do?
17 Your letter is faulty to victims. There is
18 nothing in your letter that can help us.
19 There is nothing -- no one to call us and
20 say, the murderer is going out.
21 I asked, Were the special conditions put in
22 place?
23 "Oh, yes, they were."
24 Well, I have a copy of his signed special
25 conditions:
49
1 Stay out of Nassau and Suffolk.
2 He was supposed to stay out of Manhattan
3 where my granddaughter works.
4 He was supposed to stay out of certain places
5 where our -- I've got 11 grandchildren now.
6 He was supposed to stay away from things like
7 that.
8 He was supposed to have electric monitoring.
9 He has been made a Schedule 4 -- Level 4.
10 "Level 4" means the least conditions an
11 inmate has when they get out of prison.
12 He could have stole gum, and gotten -- been a
13 Level 4.
14 When I asked about that, they said, it was
15 put in place by the parole board at the hearing
16 that -- which was Christina Hernandez, who voted,
17 and got somebody to help her, let him out.
18 My complaint is not about the parole board.
19 It's about the procedures.
20 Because, to be very, very honest, for the
21 first eight times that we had to go, we had the best
22 parole commissioners, ever, decent human beings who
23 did not want to even hear our story.
24 And after a while, we were told, Don't tell
25 what happened to Jimmy. We don't want to know that.
50
1 We want to know how you're doing.
2 Now, we only get one hour.
3 If there is five of us, we have to break it
4 into, like, 13 1/2 minutes for us to speak.
5 That has to be changed.
6 We cannot have people making those decisions
7 for us.
8 I don't want to say any more, but Niko (ph.)
9 knows that we have a complaint against the judge
10 that allowed all of our information, confidential
11 information for crime victims, said at every parole
12 hearing, "This is confidential information."
13 It went out, Judge Richard Mart (ph.).
14 My daughter was chastised for complaining to
15 him so many times.
16 So what happened to Jimmy doesn't matter any
17 longer.
18 What's going to happen now, it matters to all
19 the others of us coming out, all of the other
20 families that we represent, that Laura represents,
21 that maybe a lot of other people here represent.
22 That you represent.
23 What's going to happen to them?
24 Changes have to come. We need it.
25 And we need all of you to back us.
51
1 I'm 78 years old. I started this when I was
2 38.
3 How much longer is it going to have to be the
4 voice of the victim, not to be revictimizing
5 themselves, and all of the others.
6 I present to you.
7 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Mrs. Connelly, thank you;
8 thank you very much for sharing your story.
9 BARBARA CONNELLY: You're welcome.
10 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Are there questions?
11 SENATOR BOYLE: I have one quick question.
12 You mentioned your son's murderer, when he
13 was up for the hearing, I guess, for the release, he
14 walked in and he saw what who was there on the
15 panel, and then walked back out again?
16 They're allowed to do that?
17 BARBARA CONNELLY: Four times, because he had
18 an Article pending, Article 78.
19 I asked about it every single time, and they
20 kept saying, yes.
21 SENATOR BOYLE: Wow.
22 All right. Thank you.
23 BARBARA CONNELLY: But, the good part of that
24 was, every time that happened, as long as it was
25 six months, we could fight it again.
52
1 SENATOR BOYLE: Okay. Thank you.
2 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Mrs. Connelly, I have one
3 question.
4 What do you believe the message -- what is
5 the message that's being sent to the public by
6 granting these wholesale pardons?
7 BARBARA CONNELLY: "Politics," that's the
8 message.
9 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you.
10 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you both for your
11 testimony, and sharing that.
12 And -- yep, go right ahead.
13 SENATOR MARCELLINO: I just have a question
14 for Laura, if that's possible?
15 Okay.
16 Laura, in the statement that you presented,
17 it's a New York State parole policies' procedures,
18 you talked about, and there were eight parole board
19 hearings the families had to endure.
20 Is there a reasoning behind this, or a
21 justification for this?
22 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: I'm sorry, what section
23 are you referring to?
24 SENATOR MARCELLINO: The first page, where
25 you talk about "New York State Parole Policies and
53
1 Procedures."
2 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: That's just my heading
3 there, to separate out my testimony?
4 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes.
5 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: What is the question?
6 SENATOR MARCELLINO: This first section it
7 says:
8 "In May of '71, Herman Bell was a part of a
9 group that lured and ambushed two New York City
10 police officers.
11 "His guilt and actions were never in dispute.
12 "The families had to endure eight hearings.
13 "In the last hearing" --
14 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: He was granted parole.
15 SENATOR MARCELLINO: -- "by 2-1."
16 Was there a justification given by the parole
17 board as to why they did what they did?
18 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: Well, my guess is, that
19 they're following the same procedures and policies
20 that they have already now.
21 So, that's what needs to be changed, because
22 the procedures that they're guided by are allowing
23 for the release of individuals, like Bell, who can
24 murder our police officers, and go back out on the
25 street.
54
1 Guys like the South Shore rapist, who attack
2 women and children, and go to jail for -- or, are
3 sentenced to 650 years, and then can be released.
4 So, clearly, there's something very wrong
5 with the procedures they're following in order to
6 release those offenders.
7 BARBARA CONNELLY: And may I interrupt and
8 interject on that?
9 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Sure.
10 BARBARA CONNELLY: They used a COMPAS as a --
11 it's like a -- I'm going to say like a schedule.
12 And any tickets they have gotten in the last
13 two, three, four, five years, and they know when
14 they can start to discount some of their tickets.
15 But the COMPAS plays a very big part, because
16 they mentioned "COMPAS" in every single hearing.
17 And their good behavior.
18 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you.
19 SENATOR GALLIVAN: To Senator Marcellino's
20 question, the board in the Bell case did issue a
21 written decision.
22 That is among the records that we did
23 request, and we received it, and it will be a part
24 of the record, their -- the commissioners who voted
25 in favor, their rationale for it, as well as the
55
1 opposing commissioner.
2 So we do have that, and that's available --
3 it will be available for all members.
4 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you.
5 SENATOR GALLIVAN: We do thank you for your
6 testimony, and willingness to stand up on behalf of
7 victims.
8 Especially, very sorry for your loss, but,
9 thrilled that you've been standing up all these
10 years for victims' voices to be heard.
11 You both were very, very comprehensive in
12 your testimony.
13 And you should know, some of the victim or
14 victim groups that testified yesterday spoke to many
15 of the same things.
16 So, the combination of that, and your
17 comprehensive testimony, I don't have many
18 questions.
19 I only have one, and, Laura, it is for you.
20 You talked about the parole hearings not
21 granted every two years. But then suggested at
22 least every five years for murderers and rapists.
23 Does that mean a graduated scale, depending
24 on the severity of the crime, is what you're
25 suggesting, or recommending?
56
1 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: That's what the Tinyes
2 family had requested, and also Jenna Brooks as well,
3 that there be some type of system to -- maybe a
4 point system, something, to make a determination as
5 to when it will limit the trauma.
6 So, if you have a guy who -- like in the
7 Tinyes' case, who committed such a violent, heinous
8 crime, should it really be an opportunity for an
9 offender like that to be requesting parole hearings
10 after two years, after two years, after two years?
11 Like, where we have here, with Barbara, where
12 she's continually going to try to prevent somebody
13 from being released.
14 That in itself is traumatizing.
15 So whatever -- whatever type of a system that
16 the Senate can develop and recommend, I'm confident
17 that victims and surviving family members would be
18 supportive of that, because, right now, it's -- it's
19 at least every two years.
20 So, Barbara was subjected to situations where
21 it was once every six months, you had said?
22 BARBARA CONNELLY: At the end.
23 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: At the end.
24 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Because of the appeals,
25 and --
57
1 BARBARA CONNELLY: Because of the appeals.
2 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: Right.
3 BARBARA CONNELLY: But I do want to say to
4 that, because I don't know if you know this, there's
5 an Assembly bill, and there's a Senate bill --
6 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: Yes.
7 BARBARA CONNELLY: -- for those five years.
8 People from our group, the Hennesseys (ph.),
9 they fought hard for that.
10 I mean, there's no darned reason why it
11 shouldn't be passed. They don't have to get five
12 years, but at least it gives them a space where they
13 can say, well, this is too heinous, and we are gonna
14 keep you the five years, or it could be two, three,
15 four, or six months.
16 But five years should be there.
17 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: It should be at least
18 five years.
19 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you both for your
20 time --
21 BARBARA CONNELLY: Thank you.
22 LAURA AHEARN, ESQ.: Thank you very much.
23 SENATOR GALLIVAN: -- and your testimony.
24 SENATOR PHILLIPS: So if we could have the
25 New York State Association of PBAs,
58
1 Daniel Fitzpatrick, and Suffolk County PBA,
2 Pat Saunders.
3 SENATOR GALLIVAN: And James Hughes,
4 Suffolk County Detectives Association President.
5 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you.
6 I'm sorry, James.
7 SENATOR GALLIVAN: We do appreciate it.
8 And, let me thank you in advance for the --
9 your service, and the service of the people that you
10 represent.
11 Could you each, just for the record, state
12 your name and your title, and then whatever order
13 you want to proceed is okay with us.
14 DANIEL FITZPATRICK: Sure.
15 Daniel Fitzpatrick. I'm the treasurer of the
16 New York State Association of PBAs.
17 JAMES HUGHES: James Hughes. I am the
18 president of the Suffolk detectives, as well as an
19 executive board member for the New York State
20 Association of PBAs.
21 PAT SAUNDERS: I'm Pat Saunders. I'm the
22 sergeant at arms for the Suffolk County PBA.
23 DANIEL FITZPATRICK: Good afternoon,
24 Senators.
25 Thank you, Senator Gallivan,
59
1 Senator Phillips, Senator Marcellino, Senator Boyle.
2 Thank you for inviting us and giving us a
3 voice to be heard today.
4 As I said, my name is Daniel Fitzpatrick.
5 I'm a representative of the New York State
6 Association of PBAs.
7 We're an organization that represents
8 approximately 40,000 law-enforcement officers in
9 New York State.
10 I'm here to share with you the perspective of
11 all law enforcement as it relates to granting of
12 parole.
13 New York State has always been a leader for
14 change and innovation, and parole is just one
15 example.
16 The first use of parole in New York State --
17 in the United States was instituted in New York in
18 1817.
19 It has evolved to where we are now, 200 years
20 in the making.
21 The last major change was in 1998 with the
22 enacting of Jenna's Law. Jenna's Law strengthened
23 the penalties for violent felony convictions.
24 As we move forward 20 years from the passage
25 of Jenna's Law, we find New York a less safe place
60
1 for both law enforcement and for the community.
2 Earlier in 2018, the New York State Board of
3 Parole released the most violent of violent felons.
4 In January 2018, Christopher Thomas was given
5 parole.
6 Mr. Thomas was convicted of the 1984
7 manslaughter of 10 people, 8 of which were children.
8 Mr. Thomas's sentence was 10 consecutive
9 prison terms, which could have totaled 83 to
10 250 years.
11 Judge Ronald Aiello stated that
12 Mr. Thomas's sentence, as it was his -- it was
13 intention -- Aiello's intention at sentencing that
14 Mr. Thomas serve every single day, every single
15 hour, and every single minute of his sentence.
16 But due to state law, Mr. Thomas's sentence
17 was capped at 50 years, and was paroled after
18 serving only 32 years.
19 Think about it: 3.2 years per victim, 8 of
20 them being children.
21 If Mr. Thomas had to complete the 50 years
22 of his sentence, he would still be incarcerated till
23 the year 2035, which is 17 years from now.
24 But by far, for law enforcement, the most
25 egregious release came on April of this year, in
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1 2018, with the parole of Herman Bell.
2 Mr. Bell and his co-defendants
3 Anthony Bottoms and Albert Washington were convicted
4 in 1971 of the execution of New York City Police
5 Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones.
6 Officer Jones was once -- shot once in the
7 back of the head, execution style, by Mr. Bell.
8 And then Mr. Bell took Officer Piagentini's gun
9 and executed the officer while he pleaded for his
10 life, firing 22 rounds into the body of
11 Officer Piagentini.
12 Mr. Bell and Mr. Bottom were also
13 convicted of the 1971 killing of San Francisco
14 Sergeant John Victor Young.
15 Officer Piagentini's service revolver was
16 discovered in San Francisco shortly after the murder
17 of Sergeant Young.
18 Mr. Bell was denied parole in his first
19 six attempts, and it was not until his last appeal
20 that he took responsibility for his heinous and
21 cowardly acts.
22 Mr. Washington passed away in prison, and
23 Mr. Bottom (sic) is still currently incarcerated.
24 If Mr. Thomas and Mr. Bell were sentenced
25 under today's guidelines, they would still be in
62
1 prison today.
2 While the laws cannot be changed that
3 retroactively adjust sentences of a convicted
4 felony -- violent felony offenders, solutions must
5 be sought to ensure that the most violent felons be
6 kept in prison to ensure the safety and community of
7 our fam -- ensure the safety of our community and
8 that of law enforcement.
9 As far as the condition of pardons, as we
10 look to voting rights, the last -- the most glaring
11 of these issues, as it represents to law enforcement
12 is: Is law enforcement going to be notified if
13 these people are going to be voting?
14 If you -- you know, the most -- sex
15 offenders, are the notifications going to be made to
16 the police department that they are going to be
17 voting?
18 And if they are going to be voting, you're
19 going to have to have an officer at every single
20 polling place?
21 Which, quite honestly, seems somewhat
22 impractical.
23 Are you going to notify the detective units
24 that these sex offenders have to register with?
25 Are they going to escort them there?
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1 Are they going to have to notify them before
2 they go, or are they going to have to notify them
3 after?
4 There's a whole host of issues which have not
5 yet to be addressed.
6 The New York State Association of PBAs looks
7 forward to working with the Senate, the Assembly,
8 and the Governor's Office to find solutions that
9 address these issues.
10 Finally, I would like to thank the panel for
11 affording me the opportunity to speak with you
12 today.
13 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you; thank you very
14 much.
15 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Jim.
16 JAMES HUGHES: Good afternoon, Senators.
17 I thank you for the opportunity to appear
18 before you here today and to speak to you.
19 I want to relate to you the story of a
20 parolee, and the attempted murder of an on-duty
21 Suffolk County police officer.
22 The date was November 5, 1980, the time was
23 1:17 in the morning.
24 On November 5, 1980, a police officer in
25 Suffolk County's third precinct was operating his
64
1 sector unit, when he observed an unfamiliar male
2 subject walking south on Islip Avenue and
3 Islip Terrace.
4 The subject did not look familiar to the
5 officer who knew his sector well, and, in fact,
6 resembled the police sketch of a subject -- of a
7 suspect doing gas station robberies in the third
8 precinct.
9 The officer pulled his vehicle near the
10 subject and engaged him in conversation.
11 The officer spoke to him about our new
12 President --
13 This was the day after Election Day and
14 Ronald Reagan had just been elected the new
15 President.
16 -- and gathered information, to include the
17 subject's name, home address, subject's
18 destination -- and the subject's destination at that
19 late hour.
20 Subject indicated he had lived in Brentwood
21 and was en route to Bay Shore.
22 After the brief conversation, the subject
23 continued on his way south on Route 111.
24 The officer, still suspicious of this
25 subject, ran computer checks on the name and
65
1 information provided, and radioed a long-time sector
2 operator in the Brentwood area to inquire if he knew
3 this subject or knew of anyone that lived in the
4 address that he provided.
5 Brentwood officer did not recognize the name
6 provided.
7 Police officer continued to patrol his area
8 around the area of 111, and a short time later, he
9 observed the subject again, this time walking north
10 on 111 and looking into parked cars.
11 The officer again approached the suspect --
12 the subject and asked what he was doing.
13 He asked the subject if he had any ID on him.
14 Before the officer could exit his vehicle,
15 the subject approached the driver's window and said
16 he had a learner's permit.
17 When asked to produce it, the subject stepped
18 back and reached into his rear waist band.
19 The officer turned just as the subject fired
20 into the officer's face.
21 The officer threw his arm out, pushing the
22 subject away from the car, and drew his weapon.
23 The subject continued to fire at the police
24 officer, and the officer returned fire.
25 After three shots, the officer's weapon
66
1 became inoperable.
2 The subject continued firing, and then fled
3 north up Islip Avenue.
4 The officer radioed for assistance, and was
5 transported to the hospital, where he underwent
6 surgery for gunshot wounds to the face and leg.
7 "I survived."
8 This case was investigated by the homicide
9 squad.
10 My assailant was arrested a short time later,
11 and confessed to shooting the officer, fearing he
12 would be found to be in possession of the
13 9-millimeter handgun he carried.
14 The examination of my jammed weapon revealed
15 that an incoming round from his assailant -- from
16 this assailant had struck the front trigger guard on
17 my 38-caliber revolver and rendered it inoperable.
18 It should be noted that this weapon had been
19 held extended in front of my chest, and had it not
20 hit the trigger guard, it would, in all probability,
21 have struck me in the chest and possibly killed me.
22 Investigation revealed the arrestee was on
23 parole from a robbery conviction at the time of the
24 shooting.
25 Recovered during this investigation was a
67
1 list of police officer names the defendant had
2 planned to kill.
3 The officer described... I'm sorry.
4 I was not on that particular list. I was a
5 target of opportunity, I guess.
6 The above-subject stood trial for attempted
7 murder, first degree, and was sentenced, as charged.
8 20 to life he was sentenced to.
9 Today, every year this defendant stands up
10 for parole, and, periodically, I will appear before
11 the parole board and let my sentiments be known.
12 I do not believe that this subject should
13 ever be paroled, and made those wishes known to the
14 parole board, because of the fact that he had a list
15 of police officers he wished to kill.
16 I mean, the desire to kill anyone, be it a
17 police officer, or the people the police officers
18 protect, is abhorrent to this society, or should be.
19 It can only be hoped that a parole board will
20 continue to recognize the threat this man represents
21 to us all and keep him in prison for the life
22 sentence he truly deserved.
23 Thank you.
24 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you.
25 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Pat.
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1 PAT SAUNDERS: Good morning, Senators, and
2 assembled guests.
3 My name again is Pat Saunders, and I'm here
4 on behalf of the Suffolk County PBA and our
5 president, Noel DiGerolamo.
6 Thank you for allowing me to speak on this
7 important issue.
8 I begin my remarks with two historical dates.
9 In 1817, New York became the first state in
10 the nation to enact a good-time law with respect to
11 prison sentencing.
12 On July 1, 1930, the division of parole was
13 established in the Executive Branch of New York.
14 In the ensuing 88 years, parole for serious
15 felony crimes has fluctuated with New York State's
16 death-penalty arguments.
17 With 201 years of history, New York has the
18 most experience with parole in the nation.
19 Unfortunately, over the course of the last
20 50 years, we have wrestled with the issue of a death
21 sentence, life without parole, and parole for the
22 crimes we hold as the most vicious.
23 One theme continues to resonate amongst all
24 the arguments, however: The killing of a police
25 officer performing his official duties deserves the
69
1 most stringent of penalties.
2 In the last two years, some of our residents
3 have seemingly forgot that.
4 A police officer at work is not an
5 individual. They are representative of society and
6 our laws and norms.
7 Aggression towards them is an act against
8 society and demonstrates either complete disregard
9 or mental illness.
10 After adjudication, if a defendant is found
11 competent and guilty, the process of parole must
12 take in account the people's wish to incarcerate the
13 subject to keep society safe.
14 The killings of Police Officers
15 Waverly Jones, Joseph Piagentini, and
16 Trooper Emerson Dillon, amongst countless others,
17 were not heat-of-the-moment accidental killings.
18 They were planned and vicious assassinations,
19 and were found to be so by a jury.
20 It boggles the mind how a subject who
21 committed the ultimate act of evil against another
22 person, and by extension, all of society, could ever
23 truly be reformed.
24 The benefit of the doubt should be given to
25 the victims, their families, and co-workers.
70
1 The victims were contributing to society and
2 helping others. The convicted felons were not.
3 New York State's correctional-system
4 population is rife with prisoners who are eligible
5 for parole: Serial killers David Berkowitz and
6 Joel Rifkin, spree killers Colin Ferguson and
7 Julio Gonzalez, numerous cop-killers who I cannot
8 and will not identify by name, along with the
9 infamous Long Island diner felons who committed more
10 than 100 felonies in a tragic morning.
11 That diner is five miles from where we sit
12 right now.
13 Is the parole system really designed to let
14 these felons out?
15 As a lifelong New Yorker, I certainly would
16 hope not.
17 Reading the parole hearing minutes of the
18 murder of POs Jones and Piagentini showed me no
19 sense of remorse or responsibility. Instead, the
20 felon spoke of his role in a war against society.
21 Do we really believe those feelings ever
22 change?
23 If these prisoners are purportedly helping
24 other inmates, I say leave them in prison and let
25 them continue. The risk to us is too great to take
71
1 a chance.
2 I'll conclude with an example of parole gone
3 wrong.
4 In 1967, Joe "Mad Dog" Sullivan was convicted
5 of manslaughter.
6 In 1971 he escaped the Attica Correctional
7 Facility, the first person having done so.
8 He was recaptured six weeks later.
9 Amazingly, he was paroled in 1975.
10 Over the course of the next six years, he was
11 suspected in close to 20 murders as a contract
12 killer.
13 In 1981 he was convicted of three murders,
14 and died in prison.
15 Parole is a privilege, not a right, and
16 should be reserved for non-violent offenses that can
17 be rehabilitated, not subjects evincing the blatant
18 disregard of human life.
19 Thank you.
20 SENATOR GALLIVAN: I have one question.
21 Dan, you made reference in your testimony to
22 "under today's current sentencing standards."
23 Is that a reference to the murder of a --
24 police officers, punishable by life without
25 parole --
72
1 DANIEL FITZPATRICK: (Indiscernible.)
2 SENATOR GALLIVAN: -- life imprisonment
3 without parole?
4 DANIEL FITZPATRICK: Yes.
5 SENATOR GALLIVAN: And that is a current
6 status, I believe, from 2005, when the Legislature
7 enacted that --
8 DANIEL FITZPATRICK: Yes.
9 SENATOR GALLIVAN: -- and the governor signed
10 that?
11 DANIEL FITZPATRICK: Violent felony statutes
12 also increased in 1998 with the enactment of
13 Jenna's Law. And his -- especially, Mr. Thomas's
14 crime was committed prior to that.
15 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Okay. Thanks.
16 SENATOR PHILLIPS: I have a question for any
17 of you.
18 Were you notified of the individuals that
19 were pardoned, particularly the Level 3 sex
20 offenders, and the murderers, before they were
21 pardoned, or afterwards? Were you given the
22 individuals' names?
23 DANIEL FITZPATRICK: I'm sorry, pardoned?
24 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Through this last round of
25 the Governor's pardoning, were -- was there any
73
1 notification that --
2 DANIEL FITZPATRICK: Not to my knowledge.
3 SENATOR PHILLIPS: -- these individuals --
4 DANIEL FITZPATRICK: Not to my knowledge.
5 JAMES HUGHES: Nor mine.
6 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Senator Marcellino.
7 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Let me ask you just a
8 quick question about, the person who is being given
9 the right to vote, what would you think about the
10 use of only voting for these people by absentee
11 ballots?
12 They would not be allowed to go near a school
13 and enter a building. But if they were going to
14 vote, they could vote by absentee ballot only.
15 DANIEL FITZPATRICK: I think that would be
16 acceptable means.
17 I mean, to let a sex offender into a school?
18 Who has -- who has to answer that?
19 That's ridiculous. That's inane.
20 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Couldn't agree with you
21 more.
22 PAT SAUNDERS: Senator, I would even say, let
23 them vote with their parole officer when they check
24 in for a hearing.
25 If they're being supervised release, let them
74
1 vote when they respond there.
2 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Senator Boyle.
3 SENATOR BOYLE: I agree, that just the idea
4 that these convicts are supposed to be -- only be
5 allowed in the schools between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.,
6 just that have you to say that alone makes it so
7 ridiculous, that it should not happen at any point
8 in time during the course of the day, if any.
9 But just like to thank you gentlemen.
10 And, Jim, I've known you many years and never
11 heard that story.
12 Thank you very much for sharing it.
13 And on behalf of you, and other victims,
14 particularly Diane Piagentini, a constituent of
15 mine, the widow of Officer Piagentini, in letting
16 any police officer -- the murderer of a police
17 officer free at any time makes no sense whatsoever.
18 Thank you.
19 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you, all.
20 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you very much.
21 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Next we will have:
22 New Hyde Park-Garden City Park
23 superintendent --
24 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Dr. Jennifer Morrison.
25 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Oh, I didn't have
75
1 "Doctor."
2 -- Dr. Jennifer Morrison;
3 Mineola superintendent, Michael Nagler --
4 SENATOR PHILLIPS: "Doctor."
5 SENATOR GALLIVAN: -- another doctor. Sorry.
6 And New Hyde Park Memorial High School PTSA,
7 corresponding secretary, James Reddan.
8 JAMES REDDAN: Just "Jim."
9 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Jim Reddan.
10 JAMES REDDAN: Everybody else had titles, so
11 I take it, I'm just "Jim."
12 SENATOR PHILLIPS: I'd like to go -- I don't
13 think -- I'd like to go on record here.
14 I have a little bit of research that we did
15 in our office, and let me emphasize the word
16 "research," because there was no known way -- or,
17 the way we had to figure this out was complicated.
18 But, in Nassau County, we found 23 sex
19 offenders, including 9 -- let me repeat --
20 9 Level 3s.
21 And for those of you that don't know the
22 difference between Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3,
23 Level 3s are determined to be the high risk of
24 repeat offense and a threat to public safety, and
25 Level 3 sex offenders must register for life.
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1 These sex offenders included 10 child
2 rapists, 14 child victims as young as 2 years old.
3 And it was my office who provided this
4 information to the Nassau County Police.
5 SENATOR GALLIVAN: So we appreciate the fact
6 that you are here, and your patience, of course.
7 And as with the others, we are -- it doesn't
8 matter who goes first. But, when you testify, could
9 you just start first with your name and your title,
10 and you can proceed right into your testimony.
11 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: I guess I'll go
12 first.
13 Okay. My name is Dr. Jennifer Morrison.
14 I'm the superintendent of schools of New Hyde
15 Park-Garden City Park School District, and I'm here
16 to thank you, first, for having me.
17 I appreciate you listening.
18 And I'd also like to impress upon you the
19 importance of keeping our children secure and safe.
20 We work tirelessly to keep our children safe
21 in school.
22 And on Primary, Special, and General Election
23 days, the law requires schools to allow parolees,
24 unidentified strangers, and unvetted election
25 workers to enter and vote in our children's school
77
1 buildings.
2 We are expected to keep our children safe.
3 Schools have added visitor identification
4 systems, security guards, security vestibules with
5 mantraps, and security cameras to do so.
6 Our front doors are locked to our schools all
7 day, every single day. No one is permitted to enter
8 the building without first showing photo
9 identification.
10 On polling days, when children are present,
11 we are required to leave the doors unlocked, and we
12 are not allowed to require visitors to present
13 identification, which poses significant safety
14 concerns.
15 Anyone on election polling day can walk into
16 our schools unannounced.
17 Anyone.
18 Anyone can walk into our schools unannounced.
19 Our school buildings were built in the early
20 and mid-1900s. They were designed to be community
21 schools for the education of elementary school
22 children.
23 None were designed with the idea that
24 visitors would be entering during the school day to
25 vote, and, certainly, none were designed in an era
78
1 when anyone even thought of the possibility of
2 school shootings.
3 In one of our buildings, visitors entering to
4 vote have to pass by a student classroom and the
5 nurse's office.
6 Students in our adjacent hallways must pass
7 these visitors throughout the day to go to the
8 bathroom, to the nurse, to lunch, to gym, to music,
9 or to go to mandated services such as speech.
10 Keep in mind, these students are as young as
11 four years old.
12 In this age of horrific school shootings, we
13 owe our children better than to have polling in our
14 school buildings.
15 The board of elections offers no assistance
16 assuring the safety of our students, teachers, and
17 employees on election days, nor will the police
18 department station police officers at our buildings.
19 I asked for that help, and was advised that
20 the police department would not assign an officer on
21 election days to be at our polling places; there
22 simply aren't enough of them.
23 The board of elections will not send security
24 guards to guard our children, or even our doors.
25 This responsibility falls on school
79
1 districts.
2 The board of election does, however, send
3 election workers to our buildings who are not
4 background checked, and have absolutely no
5 familiarity with the school-safety plans.
6 Every employee in our school system that
7 enters our buildings has been fingerprinted as --
8 and is trained in emergency procedures.
9 Election workers are not.
10 On polling days they are in our facilities
11 all day long.
12 We have even had instances where election
13 workers have roamed through our buildings and used
14 student restrooms while elementary school students
15 were in there, rather than wait for the staff
16 bathroom to become available.
17 A few years ago the vote was moved out of one
18 of our schools, New Hyde Park Road School,
19 subsequent to a lockdown having been called while
20 voters were in the building.
21 Voters and election workers ignored the
22 lockdown, as they were not familiar with the
23 procedures that we use to keep our children safe.
24 Our school staff, and the police upon their
25 arrival, were unable to determine who belonged in
80
1 the building, and who or what might have been the
2 cause of the lockdown.
3 It was chaotic.
4 As I stated earlier, on election days, we are
5 not allowed to ask for visitor identification.
6 By Governor Cuomo's executive order, the
7 rights of approximately 24,000 sex offenders to vote
8 were restored, and the department of corrections has
9 implemented a procedure so that sex offenders are
10 allowed to enter schools to vote after 7 p.m.
11 They must get written permission from their
12 parole office if they intend to vote at a school,
13 and then from the school superintendent.
14 I assure you that I will not be granting my
15 permission for any sex offender to enter my school
16 buildings and vote, even after 7 p.m.
17 Ever.
18 Our doors do not close at 7 p.m.
19 There are sports practices and other
20 activities in our school buildings that are attended
21 by children.
22 Our school buildings are the center of our
23 communities. They're in use all the time.
24 But even if I deny that permission, how would
25 we know if a sex offender or a murderer or a
81
1 cop-killer was entering our schools on a polling day
2 anyway, as we are not allowed to check
3 identification?
4 This is why polling does not belong in our
5 schools.
6 This initiative is misguided, and will allow
7 dangerous felons, amongst others, into schools to
8 vote.
9 To keep our children safe, our district
10 safety plan requires visitors be buzzed into the
11 building every time they visit, and that, upon entry
12 into the building, the visitor must show photo
13 identification.
14 The visitor then receives a badge and is
15 escorted to the main office.
16 At the main office, the person is accompanied
17 to their destination.
18 At the end of their visit, they have to sign
19 out and return their badge.
20 In light of the recent nationwide security
21 concern, this process should not be expected to be
22 bypassed on election days as it contradicts the
23 procedures we have implemented to keep our children
24 safe on a daily basis.
25 These procedures were implemented based upon
82
1 recommendations received from the Nassau County
2 Police Department, among others.
3 The district's request for Nassau County
4 police officers to provide security at two of
5 New Hyde Park-Garden City Park schools, Manor Oaks
6 and Hillside Grade, during the Primary Election,
7 which was scheduled to be held in both buildings on
8 Thursday, September 13, 2018, while children were in
9 the building, was denied.
10 Our request for traffic control during
11 arrival and dismissal times at Manor Oaks School
12 located on busy and crowded Hillside Avenue, was
13 denied.
14 The volume of students, parents, and voters
15 caused us a significant safety issue at these times.
16 It also displaces our staff from parking in
17 the limited spaces when they come to work.
18 Our lots become so congested that, last
19 Election Day, a voter had a car accident in our
20 parking lot.
21 In addition to all the concerns I have
22 stated, this is a huge disruption to exactly what
23 we're supposed to be doing every day, which is
24 instruction.
25 Using schools as a voting location interferes
83
1 with library classes and mandated physical-education
2 instruction for three days:
3 The day before the vote, when the voting
4 machines and the polling-related items are delivered
5 and set up;
6 Then the day of the polling;
7 And the day after the polling while we wait
8 for the board of elections to remove these items.
9 New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School
10 District is working with Senator Phillips, presiding
11 Officer Nicolello, Assemblyman Ed Ra, and
12 Councilman Ferrara, to have all elections
13 permanently removed from our school buildings.
14 In the meantime, we need your assistance to
15 keep our children safe, and keep the vote and the
16 parolees out of our schools.
17 Thank you.
18 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you.
19 Dr. Nagler.
20 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: Thank you.
21 I wrote "good morning," but it's "good
22 afternoon" now.
23 Senators, I appreciate the time.
24 My name is Michael Nagler. I'm the
25 superintendent of Mineola Public Schools. I also
84
1 currently serve as the president of Nassau County
2 Council of School Superintendents.
3 I'm going to paraphrase some of my remarks
4 because they're a repeat of what Jen's already said.
5 What she described as a typical procedure for
6 a parent entering the building is common in all of
7 our buildings. That's the new reality.
8 The days where parents just come in to drop
9 off lunch, and go into the classrooms, are done.
10 In fact, we typically have what we call
11 "mantraps," which are secured vestibules.
12 They have to leave things there.
13 To get an instrument, if you forgot your
14 lunch, leave it there. We'll take it to your child.
15 So that's the reality for our parents, and,
16 obviously, using schools as polling places is a
17 contradiction to that.
18 As Jen said, the polling place and procedures
19 contradict all of our procedures for school safety.
20 I would add a few things.
21 In my case, in Mineola, our answer has been
22 to limit voting to a classroom.
23 We find a classroom with an exterior door.
24 We put the machines in that classroom. And we use a
25 separate entrance as a polling place.
85
1 And we don't want people wandering around our
2 buildings.
3 We hire security. So we incur the cost to
4 Mineola, to hire additional security in every
5 polling place, to ensure the public doesn't wander
6 to where our children are.
7 In spite of that, we had an incident in the
8 last Primary.
9 We also -- it's not a very comfortable place
10 for voters.
11 When you typically go to your polling place,
12 you'll have five or six machines, based on the EDs,
13 the ADs, and there's just six, seven people show up,
14 which doesn't really happen anymore. But, when they
15 do, it's not really a manageable space.
16 But that's our solution instead of opening up
17 a gymnasium.
18 When children aren't in the building, voting
19 really is a non-issue.
20 But it's fairly common practice for schools
21 to close on Election Day, although, two years ago,
22 Mineola was open.
23 The reason we were open, is because the -- we
24 have restrictions on when school can start and when
25 it ends, and within that timeframe, we have to fit
86
1 in contractual obligations.
2 All of our districts have different number of
3 days. In some -- some districts are 186, some are
4 182.
5 But, that is becoming harder and harder to
6 fit within that time frame.
7 The granting of new religious -- not new
8 religious holidays, but, additional religious
9 holidays has made that more problematic.
10 I'm aware of Senator Funke's bill that
11 proposes, that it will require schools to close on
12 Election Day.
13 I think that would further exacerbate the
14 problem, and that bill does not account for
15 primaries.
16 So when you have election days, great.
17 Obviously, the mid-term and the presidential
18 elections, we get a lot more voters. But primaries
19 pose the same problems.
20 There's also that discussion about early
21 voting. I'm not quite sure how that's going to
22 work.
23 But it would certainly be, if you're having
24 multiple days for voting, that would even exacerbate
25 the problem even further.
87
1 I'd like to comment on parolees and voting in
2 schools.
3 The notion that superintendents should grant
4 permission for convicted sex offenders to vote in
5 our buildings is ridiculous.
6 No superintendent is going to agree to that,
7 and I don't think it's fair to place that decision
8 in our laps.
9 I am aware that the law dates back to 2006.
10 It doesn't make sense then, it doesn't make
11 sense now.
12 We really don't want any part of a political
13 hot potato, especially when the obvious solution is,
14 just use an absentee ballot.
15 And, frankly, I believe it's a complete
16 disregard for school communities to have that occur.
17 We're asking for the ability to work with the
18 board of elections.
19 We understand that voting has to happen.
20 We understand it has to be in accessible
21 buildings.
22 What -- we're supportive of Senator Phillips'
23 bill that gives us the ability to decline serving as
24 a polling place, similar to the discretion allowed
25 other entities, but not allowed schools.
88
1 And my colleagues and I are prepared to work
2 with the board of elections to find alternative
3 solutions, such as firehouses, village halls,
4 libraries; the obvious public places, because, at
5 this point, based on current circumstances, those
6 venues make more sense.
7 I thank you for the opportunity to testify.
8 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Mr. Reddan.
9 JAMES REDDAN: Thank you, Senator.
10 Good morning.
11 My name is James Reddan.
12 My proudest title is a husband, and dad to
13 Courtney (ph.), James, and Kelsey (ph.).
14 I am also a veteran of the United States
15 Army.
16 I appear before you today to offer testimony
17 in the topic of elections.
18 I have been authorized by a vote of the
19 membership of the New Hyde -- to express the opinion
20 of the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Committee
21 Against Polling in Schools, by the New Hyde Park
22 Memorial High School Parent-Teacher-Student
23 Association.
24 Here with me today, just behind me to my
25 right, is Danielle Messina and Kathryn Canese.
89
1 These talented women, along with
2 Liz Sollecito, are the driving force behind the
3 committee and the PTSA.
4 I will skip the pleasantries, but thank you
5 very much for letting me be here. I'm trying to
6 truncate my statements.
7 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Excellent.
8 JAMES REDDAN: The New Hyde Park-Garden City
9 Park community began its fight against polling in
10 our schools before the Governor signed Executive
11 Order 181.
12 Our issue is, and always has been, the safety
13 of our children.
14 For many years, three of our elementary
15 schools were polling locations.
16 It was acceptable in the past, but times have
17 changed.
18 Our story begins on Election Day, 2014.
19 On that day, at New Hyde Park Road School,
20 the alarm was triggered and a lockdown was
21 initiated.
22 Our children, teachers, and staff were locked
23 in the school for about two hours. Everyone in a
24 locked office or locked classroom, waiting for the
25 all-clear; every teacher and administrator complying
90
1 with the school safety plan.
2 The Nassau County Police, Third Precinct, did
3 an excellent job, and secured our school.
4 However, during the lockdown, the election
5 process continued.
6 Voters and poll workers were free to roam
7 portions of the school, enter and leave as they
8 pleased; thus, defeating the purpose of a lockdown.
9 We decided on that day polling in our schools
10 is unacceptable and a potential security threat.
11 Our community organized a petition drive, and
12 we were successful in removing Election Day polling
13 from New Hyde Park Road School.
14 Unfortunately, voting remained at Manor Oaks
15 and Hillside Grade schools.
16 The voting at Manor Oaks is under the control
17 of the school board. The school board moved that
18 election in the May 2017 election year to the
19 Michael J. Tully Park.
20 Through the collective efforts of the
21 residents in our community, we have been successful
22 in facilitating the removal of polling from Hillside
23 Grade School. That happened this year.
24 Our elementary schools were no longer subject
25 to the potential safety threat. The school safety
91
1 plan would no longer be compromised by the election
2 process.
3 For that we thank everyone that helped us,
4 and the Nassau County board of elections.
5 We breathed a sigh of relief.
6 The board of elections was offered two
7 reasonable locations.
8 The New Hyde Park Fire District offered the
9 use of their firehouses.
10 We secured -- also secured Michael J. Tully
11 Park as an optional site.
12 New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School
13 District holds their budget and trustee vote at
14 Tully Park.
15 The site is an approved voting location.
16 Simple, we thought.
17 Tax -- Tully Park is taxpayer-funded,
18 handicap-accessible, offers a large parking field,
19 and is a well-known and convenient location within
20 our community.
21 After offering these locations as
22 alternatives, the board of elections surveyed these
23 locations.
24 Progress, we thought.
25 We waited for a decision; we waited all
92
1 summer.
2 We became aware of the new location when the
3 board of elections mailed out the voter-registration
4 cards.
5 Unfortunately, the board of elections
6 selected New Hyde Park Memorial High School for the
7 September 13th Primary vote and the November 6th
8 General Election.
9 We were shocked.
10 What could we do now? The cards were mailed,
11 the location selected, the Primary two weeks away.
12 We fought back is what we did.
13 We made calls, we sent e-mails, and let our
14 voices be heard to anyone that would listen.
15 Thankfully, someone did listen.
16 The board of elections changed the location
17 of the Primary. They moved it to Tulley Park, one
18 of our original alternative locations.
19 The move occurred one week prior to the
20 Primary vote.
21 Again, a collective sigh of relief, but we
22 are not done, our mission is not complete.
23 The board of elections has selected New Hyde
24 Park Memorial High School as the voting location for
25 the November 6th General Election.
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1 The selection of the high school as an
2 alternative to the elementary schools is baffling to
3 us.
4 The same children that attend our schools
5 have brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends that
6 attend the high school. The same families are
7 affected.
8 Today, as I speak to you, 1860 children, aged
9 11 through 18, are in attendance at New Hyde Park
10 Memorial High School.
11 1860 children -- our children.
12 The selection of the high school as a polling
13 location is unacceptable and unnecessary.
14 I have been voting for 39 years.
15 New Hyde Park Memorial High School has never
16 been a polling location during that time.
17 We are pleading with the Nassau County Board
18 of Elections to utilize Tulley Park on November 6th,
19 the same park that was used by the board of
20 elections to conduct the September 13th Primary
21 Election.
22 I told you our story because you and I should
23 not have to fight to remove voting from our schools.
24 We shouldn't have to compromise the safety of
25 our children because of an election.
94
1 The perceived inconvenience of moving a
2 polling location should not be more important than
3 our children.
4 There are alternatives.
5 We should be afforded a simple solution: Give
6 the individual school districts the legal authority
7 to opt out.
8 Before I continue about a possible opt-out
9 option, I would like to comment on Executive
10 Order 181.
11 Executive Order 181 went into effect May 1st
12 this year.
13 The order could, potentially, give tens of
14 thousands of felons on parole the right to vote.
15 The Governor says these parolees are
16 disenfranchised voters. That many of them are
17 contributing to society, and it is unfair to prevent
18 them from voting.
19 There is no doubt that some of these parolees
20 will go on to continue productive lives and
21 contribute to our society. People do make mistakes.
22 But New York State law has a way for the
23 parolee to restore his right to vote. It is called
24 a "relief from civil disabilities." It is granted
25 by a judge by a motion to the Court.
95
1 But it is also true that there are some
2 parolees that will never change.
3 Some of those parolees are convicted sexual
4 predators.
5 Allowing them to vote allows them access to
6 our schools; allows them to enter our schools on
7 Election Day.
8 To enter the schools in New Hyde Park and
9 Garden City Park, you need to produce
10 identification.
11 If you do not have identification, you do not
12 get in.
13 Very simple.
14 During an election, the schools have to open
15 up their doors to the voting public.
16 Schools are not allowed to ask voters for
17 identification.
18 They have no record of who enters the
19 building during an election.
20 So it is more than possible that a sexual
21 predator will feel emboldened by this executive
22 order, and will enter one of our schools, or wander
23 around outside, just waiting for the opportunity to
24 harm one of our children.
25 That, is unacceptable.
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1 My community wanted elections out of our
2 schools before Executive Order 181.
3 Now we believe that it is imperative.
4 In the near future, thanks to
5 Senator Phillips, it may be possible for our schools
6 to opt out.
7 Selecting a school as a polling location for
8 elections poses a serious potential threat to the
9 safety of our children, staff, and teachers, a
10 threat that may be easily eliminated.
11 Senator Phillips has proposed legislation
12 known as S9155. The bill, if approved by the
13 Legislature and signed by the Governor, would allow
14 schools to opt out of polling.
15 This is an important step, a commonsense
16 piece of legislation.
17 We know our communities and the schools that
18 our children attend better than any county board of
19 election.
20 Our local elected school boards, and the
21 superintendents that of our individual school
22 districts -- of our individual school districts,
23 know our schools better than anyone else.
24 In fact, school-safety plans are designed by
25 the superintendent based on the specific needs of
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1 their individual schools.
2 Our superintendents, and the school boards
3 that serve us, should determine if an election may
4 be safely conducted within our schools, not an
5 unelected county official.
6 Senator Phillips' bill, if passed, would do
7 just that.
8 The legislation would give our school
9 districts the legal right to tell the board of
10 elections, "Not in our schools, we opt out."
11 Schools cannot enforce a school-safety plan
12 and conduct an election.
13 School-safety plans and the election process
14 are mutually exclusive.
15 As I conclude my remarks, I ask all of you
16 for my help -- for help.
17 Executive Order 181 adds another layer of
18 uncertainty.
19 It makes no sense to allow a convicted
20 predator entry into the schools.
21 Schools do not have the financial resources,
22 nor do they have the manpower, to provide the
23 necessary level of security.
24 To our elected representatives, vote "yes"
25 when given the opportunity. Make this bill a law.
98
1 To all of you in the audience, thank you for
2 coming.
3 Please call your representatives and urge
4 them to support S9155.
5 Our communities take school safety seriously.
6 Tell them our schools should not be allowed
7 to opt out of acting as polling -- should be allowed
8 to opt out of polling locations for elections if
9 that individual school district so chooses.
10 Finally, to the Nassau County Board of
11 Elections: We ask that you do not hold the
12 November 6th General Election at New Hyde Park
13 Memorial High School.
14 Tulley Park held the September 13th Primary
15 vote.
16 Tulley Park should also be the location of
17 the November 6th General Election.
18 Common sense, and the safety of our children,
19 should count for something.
20 No one should be allowed to compromise the
21 safety of our school children because of a vote.
22 The perceived inconvenience of moving polling
23 out of a school should not trump a child's
24 well-being or safety.
25 Thank you for the opportunity to offer
99
1 testimony.
2 Thank you all for listening.
3 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you.
4 [Applause.]
5 SENATOR PHILLIPS: I have a few questions,
6 but if Senator Boyle or Marcellino --
7 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Go right ahead.
8 SENATOR PHILLIPS: -- go ahead.
9 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you, panelists.
10 And thank you for your principled stances on
11 this.
12 As I mentioned earlier, a reference to a bill
13 that I had introduced a number of years ago about
14 banning polling in schools, I can tell you that, as
15 soon as I introduced that piece of legislation,
16 I was getting barraged by phone calls from around
17 the state, from board of election commissioners,
18 telling me, Do you know how much this is going to
19 cost?
20 And this was before the recent rash of school
21 shootings.
22 I mean -- and so my question is:
23 I know you talked about mantraps.
24 Do any of you, or do you know of any other
25 school districts in Nassau or Suffolk county, that
100
1 have metal detectors?
2 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: We typically
3 don't typically have metal detectors.
4 Other security measures would be panic
5 alarms, lockdown buttons, security bollards. In
6 some cases, armed guards.
7 It's -- it's reached the point, even --
8 between Sandy Hook and Parkland.
9 Now, post-Parkland, it's reached the point
10 where you really can't get in a school building.
11 It's -- there are electronic doors, there's
12 (indiscernible) keys; there are all sorts of
13 measures to limit who comes in and out of the
14 buildings.
15 SENATOR BOYLE: And you can't get into a
16 school, except one day a year, on Election Day --
17 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: Well, multiple
18 days, because there are multiple --
19 SENATOR BOYLE: -- there's primaries too.
20 And, remember, in Presidential.
21 Because we haven't changed the laws in
22 New York State, there's a separate Presidential
23 Primary.
24 So we have three times that it -- it ended up
25 becoming Presidential Election.
101
1 I would just add, parenthetically, that, you
2 know, some of these school-shooters, obviously,
3 they're evil individuals, but they're evilly smart
4 too. And they plan things out. We see some of the
5 shootings.
6 So there's some sicko out there, getting
7 ready, realizing, when they're -- this is an
8 opportunity.
9 And, God help us, if we allow that to happen.
10 And I support Senator Phillips' bill.
11 Thank you for your leadership on that,
12 Senator.
13 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Can one of you go
14 through the idea of not closing on Election Day?
15 I believe, Mr. Nagler -- Dr. Nagler, that you
16 had talked about that, that that wasn't feasible.
17 Can you go through that again, please?
18 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: We have to start
19 school in the month of September.
20 The earliest we can do it is September 1st,
21 by law. And we conclude the last day of regents, by
22 law.
23 Within that time --
24 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Which is usually around
25 June?
102
1 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: Well, this year
2 it's very late.
3 But, normally, it's around the 22nd, the
4 last -- the third Friday in June.
5 SENATOR MARCELLINO: (Indiscernible)
6 June 20th, or something like that.
7 Okay.
8 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: Within that, we
9 all have contractual obligations of how many days
10 our teachers and staff work, as high as 186 days, as
11 low as 180.
12 We're also mandated, we cannot receive State
13 aid if we don't have a minimum of 180 days.
14 So all of those things factor in around the
15 three breaks we take: The February, the
16 Christmas/Hanukkah holiday, and the Passover/Easter
17 break.
18 Recently we've been adding additional
19 holidays. Lunar New Year.
20 And not all of us do -- not every district.
21 It's based on communities.
22 But, every day you add, you take away a day
23 of flexibility to get you 182 in.
24 I'm using that as my example, is 182.
25 This year was easy, because the regents ended
103
1 on the last Wednesday. So we actually gained three
2 days that we never had before.
3 Next year it will be problematic again. The
4 way the holidays fall, it shrinks our window.
5 So, sometimes, we need to open on Election
6 Day.
7 And, again, depending on the polling places
8 and the district, it's less problematic for some
9 districts than others.
10 That's why I appreciate the way the bill was
11 written, is it's the option of the district.
12 If you can manage a secure polling place, so
13 be it.
14 If you cannot, then it's in your interest to
15 change it.
16 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: Especially when there
17 are other available locations.
18 For example, in New Hyde Park or in City
19 Park, Mr. Reddan talked about Tulley Park. It's
20 right across the street from the Memorial High
21 School.
22 It's got a better facility, better access...
23 better everything.
24 And the board of elections is choosing to put
25 the vote in our high school.
104
1 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Did they give you a
2 reason for that?
3 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: I have my guesses,
4 which I probably shouldn't --
5 SENATOR MARCELLINO: No, I want to know.
6 JAMES REDDAN: No, there was no reason given.
7 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: I can give you a few
8 guesses.
9 JAMES REDDAN: Well, we all know why.
10 Because they took it out of our schools --
11 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: They took it out of
12 the elementary schools.
13 JAMES REDDAN: -- and they didn't want to
14 take it out of the school for us, because, if they
15 did that for us, they might have to do that for
16 other locations.
17 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: I would just add
18 that the New Hyde Park is an elementary district.
19 And the high school is Sewanhaka District.
20 So, technically, it's two different
21 districts.
22 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Different districts.
23 Okay.
24 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: Same families.
25 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: So they did move
105
1 it out of one district.
2 JAMES REDDAN: Yes --
3 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: Completely.
4 JAMES REDDAN: -- New Hyde Park is a school
5 district unto itself. It covers the four elementary
6 schools.
7 The Sewanhaka Central High School District
8 covers five high schools, one of which is New Hyde
9 Park Memorial High School.
10 Two of the members that sit on the board of
11 education at New Hyde Park Gardens sit on the
12 Sewanhaka board.
13 The board of elections knows the location, it
14 knew our community, and it chose to put it in our
15 school, when Tulley Park is a better location.
16 First-floor access, handicap-accessible.
17 A gigantic parking field.
18 No reason, really.
19 In our location, at least in my community, it
20 might -- this might not be true of all communities,
21 we have various places to hold elections.
22 The volunteer firemen in our community, both
23 in the Garden City Park Fire District and the
24 New Hyde Park Fire District, are more than willing
25 to offer their firehouses to help us in our cause.
106
1 The board of elections surveyed New Hyde
2 Park's firehouses. They surveyed Tulley Park.
3 And they chose New Hyde Park Memorial High
4 School for the Primary.
5 We fought.
6 Senator Phillips -- we called
7 Senator Phillips, Assemblyman Ed Ra, Councilman
8 Town -- Town of North Hempstead Councilman
9 Andrew Ferrara, and Assembly -- excuse me,
10 Richard Nicolello.
11 They helped us; they moved that Primary vote.
12 But they still, at least as far as we know,
13 intend on holding the General Election at New Hyde
14 Park Memorial High School.
15 That's unacceptable.
16 The school is not set up for that. Never has
17 been a polling location.
18 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Let me make one comment
19 to -- that was stated.
20 We -- I attempted, and in the Senate, to pass
21 legislation that would give school districts the
22 option of starting school up to three days before
23 September 1st and get State aid for it.
24 You can now, but they don't get State aid for
25 it.
107
1 And I, literally, almost got booed out of the
2 Senate chamber by the Minority's party.
3 So much for that idea.
4 I tried, thinking it would give school
5 districts an option, given the amazing diversity we
6 have here on Long Island, and, really, throughout
7 New York State.
8 So, I have a couple of questions for the
9 school superintendents:
10 How are your schools notified that specific
11 registered sex offenders would be appearing at your
12 schools on Primary and election days?
13 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: We were not
14 notified.
15 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: No, not at all.
16 We were not notified.
17 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Maybe a phone call from
18 me.
19 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: No, I mean, we did
20 not receive anything --
21 SENATOR PHILLIPS: No notification?
22 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: -- whatsoever.
23 No notification.
24 SENATOR PHILLIPS: And was there any
25 notification given to you when the decision on
108
1 September 7th was made by the Department of
2 Criminal -- I think, is it the DOCCS?
3 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: The department of
4 corrections.
5 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you.
6 -- was there any notification to you that the
7 sex offenders would be allowed after 7 p.m.?
8 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: No.
9 I actually read it in the newspaper.
10 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: I received no
11 notification.
12 SENATOR PHILLIPS: And one of you mentioned
13 that you provide -- I think it was Dr. Nagler,
14 that you provide additional security on election
15 days, and that's a cost.
16 Who absorbs that cost?
17 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: The Mineola
18 taxpayers.
19 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you.
20 SENATOR GALLIVAN: So neither of your
21 schools, you didn't get any requests at all to do
22 with sex-offender voting at the school?
23 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: No.
24 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: No, we did not.
25 SENATOR GALLIVAN: You mentioned an incident.
109
1 You had one incident on Primary Day?
2 What was it?
3 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: We had a voter
4 find their way to a bathroom, and it had fecal
5 matter on the walls. Had some cleaning to do after
6 they used the facility.
7 SENATOR GALLIVAN: So more related to your
8 security concerns, as opposed to the gov -- in
9 general --
10 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: (Indiscernible.)
11 SENATOR GALLIVAN: -- as opposed to the
12 Governor's --
13 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: Yes.
14 SENATOR GALLIVAN: -- so that was unrelate --
15 incident unrelated to the Governor's executive
16 order?
17 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: Correct.
18 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Is it fair to say that all
19 of you would agree that you're in the education
20 business and shouldn't be in the election business?
21 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: Oh, wholeheartedly.
22 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Is that a fair statement?
23 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: Absolutely, yes.
24 SENATOR GALLIVAN: So you know, we did have
25 testimony yesterday from the New York State
110
1 Association of School Superintendents, and their
2 New York State School Boards Association, very --
3 you know, very similar to all of your testimony
4 today with the points that you made.
5 And one additional point, and I think, Jim,
6 I think you mentioned this, about the process
7 regarding a certificate of release -- relief going
8 to a judge.
9 DR. MICHAEL NAGLER, Ph.D.: Yes.
10 SENATOR GALLIVAN: This is really just for
11 information.
12 Their process -- there's another way to do
13 it.
14 Somebody who has been in state prison can
15 make application to the parole board as well, and
16 they have the authority, separately, to issue a
17 certificate of relief.
18 So, that provision did exist, that they could
19 ask at any time for that.
20 So I just want to point that out.
21 You did mention the other part in the law.
22 I just want to make it part of the record.
23 JAMES REDDAN: It's on the books.
24 The Legislature passed that, and allowed
25 everybody to do that, which is why Executive
111
1 Order 181 really doesn't make sense, because, you,
2 along with your colleagues in Albany, are the ones
3 that are supposed to create law; not the Governor.
4 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you all for your
5 testimony.
6 DR. JENNIFER MORRISON: Thank you.
7 SENATOR MARCELLINO: (Indiscernible.)
8 JAMES REDDAN: Excuse me?
9 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Can we have you on the
10 record telling him that?
11 JAMES REDDAN: I'll come up to Albany. I'll
12 shake his hand and tell him, What are you doing?
13 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you again.
14 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you.
15 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Next we have will
16 James Royall, and, Jared, I apologize, Chausow --
17 Have I pronounced it correctly?
18 JARED CHAUSOW: Not bad.
19 SENATOR GALLIVAN: -- from the Brooklyn
20 Defender Services.
21 Mr. Royall, did I pronounce you correctly as
22 well?
23 Okay. Good.
24 Thank you for your patience.
25 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Yes, thank you very much.
112
1 SENATOR GALLIVAN: We appreciate your
2 willingness to be here today, and to testify.
3 And my understanding is, Mr. Royall, you're
4 going to present the testimony?
5 JAMES ROYALL: Yes, I am.
6 SENATOR PHILLIPS: If I could --
7 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Excuse me.
8 SENATOR PHILLIPS: -- I apologize, for one
9 more second, because I do want to announce that the
10 Nassau County Board of Elections have been in the
11 audience, Mr. Joe Ra and Mr. Steve Marks.
12 I want to thank them.
13 They were unable to testify, but they did
14 want to listen to the testimony.
15 So, thank you for coming.
16 SENATOR GALLIVAN: And also scheduled to
17 testify is a representative from the Suffolk Board
18 of Elections?
19 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Yes. Nicholas LaLota.
20 Nicholas, are you here?
21 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Which we understand, he is
22 now not going to be able to attend?
23 All right. Thank you.
24 All right. Mr. Royall.
25 JAMES ROYALL: Well, first, I would like to
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1 say that, thank you for having me, and, you know,
2 allowing me to testify on this important issue.
3 My name is James Royall. I'm a reentry
4 advocate at Brooklyn Defender Services.
5 And we provide criminal defense, family
6 defense, immigration, civil legal services,
7 social-work support, and tools for self-advocacy in
8 nearly 35,000 cases involving indigent Brooklyn
9 residents every year.
10 As part of the reentry unit, I provide a
11 comprehensive support for people upon release from
12 prisons or jails, and direct advocacy on behalf of
13 our clients while they are incarcerated.
14 I know the meaning of parole release, the
15 heartbreak and devastation of being denied, and of
16 the joy when it is granted.
17 I also know the hardship of incarceration for
18 families.
19 In fact, I'm also here on behalf of the
20 New Hour in Brentwood, the Nassau County Jail
21 Advocates, prison families, (indiscernible), and
22 Universalist Unitarian Congregation at Shelter Rock,
23 and the Second Chance Reentry.
24 By countless indicators, incarceration
25 throughout the United States, including in New York,
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1 is historically a global anomaly.
2 States, including New York, there are more
3 people under correctional supervision across the
4 country than were in the Gulag at its in early
5 1950s.
6 Until the spread of a mandatory minimum
7 sentence and regimes that developed as a part of the
8 War on Drugs in the 1970s and the 1980s, the
9 incarceration rates across the country had remained
10 relatively constant for a long time.
11 Here in New York, the average rate of
12 incarceration was less than 75 incarcerated people
13 per 100,000 people for a century, until it more than
14 quintupled during this period, that decade from the
15 '70s to the '80s.
16 Here in New York State, the stark and
17 persistent racial disparities in incarceration
18 rates, and every other aspect of the criminal legal
19 system, had led many to call it the "New Jim Crow."
20 Notably, incarceration rates for White people
21 did not substantially rise under the new harsher
22 sentencing laws and guidelines.
23 Now, thanks to part of the new drug law
24 enforcement reforms, the current incarceration rate
25 in New York has fallen by a quarter since its peak
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1 in 1999 and crimes rates have plummeted.
2 But, New York's incarceration rate is still
3 nearly double of that in Maine, and about
4 3 1/2 times of that of Germany.
5 To truly roll back mass incarceration,
6 New York must expand parole release for those who
7 have rehabilitated themselves and transformed their
8 lives.
9 It has been said that those that had once
10 been deprived of it is the ones that's closer to the
11 solution.
12 And, even as New York's prison population has
13 gradually declined, a number of incarcerated people
14 age 50 or older jumped by 46 percent.
15 So the elderly population has grown as the
16 New York's population, overall, has declined.
17 These are mostly men and women who have
18 committed serious crimes decades ago, or who have
19 taken advantage of every opportunity permitted by
20 the difficult incarcerated environment to turn their
21 lives around and make amends, and want to rejoin the
22 fabric of society, their families.
23 And, when I say "make amends," is giving
24 back.
25 It's making sure 10, 12, 20 people don't do
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1 the same thing that one person did a long time ago.
2 That's a beneficial process.
3 That's very beneficial for the state of our
4 affairs.
5 That is the order of the day.
6 Yet, far too often, New Yorkers, especially
7 older adults, are dying in prison after being denied
8 parole multiple times, including nearly 1,000 such
9 deaths under the current governor.
10 We can and must safely expand parole release,
11 and that is the key --
12 [Cell phone ringing.]
13 I don't know how that happened.
14 Excuse me.
15 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Glad it was yours, and not
16 mine.
17 JAMES ROYALL: It was mine.
18 I'm sorry.
19 [Laughter.]
20 JAMES ROYALL: -- so -- yet, far too often,
21 New Yorkers, especially older adults, are dying in
22 prison after being denied parole multiple times,
23 including nearly 1,000 such under the current
24 governor.
25 We can, and must, safely expand parole
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1 release, while reinvesting the savings produced by
2 decreased populations and meaningful support in
3 crime -- and meaningfully supporting crime victims
4 and their families, including those who themselves
5 have committed -- who may have committed crimes.
6 One of the things about safely expanding
7 parole release and reinvesting in savings, that is
8 definitely my favorite line, "the order of the day."
9 When you are able to use individuals that has
10 once have been the problem, and they are now the
11 solution, and they have been evaluated, they are not
12 their worst mistake.
13 You know, there's an evaluative process.
14 They have spoke about the risk assessment,
15 but it's not just the risk assessment alone.
16 You know, there's a whole history, a
17 historical background, on this individual.
18 They are being (indiscernible).
19 We're not saying let all individuals that
20 are -- the mistake they made 20, 30, 40 years ago,
21 even 10 years ago.
22 We're saying, evaluate these individuals, and
23 let them go if they pass that test.
24 This is how we can bring safety and justice
25 to New York, and stop the cycles of trauma and
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1 violence.
2 We must come together and work together.
3 John MacKenzie's tragic death is a symbolic
4 of a broken parole system that continues to
5 undermine the presumed rehabilitative nature of our
6 criminal legal system.
7 Presumed rehabilitative nature of our
8 criminal legal system.
9 John was an extraordinary person, a
10 Long Island resident, who took full responsibility
11 for his serious crime, and did everything to make
12 amends.
13 He started a victim-awareness program,
14 obtained multiple college degrees, and helped
15 countless young men transform their lives through
16 group therapy and direct mentorship.
17 He would have been a crucial asset to the
18 community if given the chance.
19 In fact, Justice Maria Rosa of the
20 New York State Supreme Court in Dutchess County held
21 the parole board in contempt for refusing to give
22 any justification for denying Mr. MacKenzie's
23 release beyond his original crime.
24 After throwing out an earlier denial, and
25 ordering a new hearing, at which the board's
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1 decision was virtually the same, the New York State
2 parole risk assessment, COMPAS, had found that
3 70-year-old John MacKenzie posed absolutely no
4 threat to society, but he was still denied parole
5 for the tenth time.
6 A week later, he committed suicide. He
7 hanged himself with a sheet.
8 His adult daughters will never see him free,
9 or at all, despite all that he did to make positive
10 changes in so many lives; not only his self, but so
11 many lives.
12 That is (indiscernible) that repeated in
13 unjustifiable parole denials wreak on our loved ones
14 and community members.
15 That is why Brooklyn Defender Services joins
16 with our allies in the parole justice movement to
17 say, Bring our elders home.
18 In addition, I applaud Governor Cuomo's
19 executive order, giving people on parole the
20 opportunity to vote, which turned the page on a
21 shameful Jim Crow error policy, and helped to affirm
22 our state's commitment to democracy.
23 Any rollback of this long overdue reform
24 would be a huge injustice and an embarrassment to
25 our state.
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1 The fact that some politicians may have
2 managed to link expanded voting rights and alleged
3 public safety threats is -- excuse me, let me say
4 that again.
5 The fact that some politicians have managed
6 to link expanded voting rights with alleged public
7 safety threats is reminiscent of the infamous
8 southern strategy of stroking wide fear and anger.
9 So I ask, please, can we come together to
10 improve safety and end the injustices of our state
11 without demonizing people, without demonizing us?
12 We need to come together and work together.
13 Thank you.
14 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you, sir.
15 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you, sir.
16 [Applause.]
17 SENATOR GALLIVAN: You did make some
18 recommendations in your written testimony, on
19 "Conclusion," a reference to two different bills
20 that I am familiar with, and the composition of the
21 parole board.
22 So I do note that, and that will be part of
23 the record also.
24 I've got a question, but, you what?
25 Let me first say, at the very end, you talked
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1 about coming together and working together.
2 I concur, I share that.
3 And I think if we had more of that in public
4 service, we would do much better for our
5 communities.
6 So, thank you for saying that, and keep
7 talking to your elected officials about that, all of
8 us.
9 I appreciate that.
10 Beyond that, question in two areas.
11 It's pretty interesting to me, and this is
12 among the reasons that I articulated earlier for
13 holding these hearings, specifically with the parole
14 board itself.
15 My observation has been:
16 That we've got those that might focus on law
17 and order are unhappy with the parole board.
18 Those that focus on inmate advocacy are
19 unhappy with the parole board.
20 Those that are elected as Republicans seem
21 unhappy, have expressed unhappiness.
22 Those elected as Democrats have expressed
23 unhappiness.
24 Upstate, downstate, east and west.
25 So, clearly, there's an issue.
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1 So I want to ask you about two different
2 areas, unless you're satisfied that these areas are
3 adequate.
4 The first has to do with transparency of the
5 parole board operations, and second has to do with
6 parole board accountability.
7 And I'm curious if you have any thoughts
8 about either one of them.
9 JAMES ROYALL: Well, I think that the answer
10 to both questions is with this one answer:
11 I believe that the standards and the
12 structured 259-i -- Executive Order 259-i, that's
13 standard, and the risk assessment is standard.
14 I believe those are some viable structures;
15 however, it has to be followed.
16 That's the broken part of the parole system
17 for me.
18 For the other side, the broken part is that
19 they are letting individuals go. Some individuals
20 are coming home.
21 However, there is one individual that may be
22 released out of ten, may have, I would call it
23 "recidivate." Then there's a big hoopla about that.
24 And then the other nine individuals has to suffer
25 for that.
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1 So that's a broken part, and they blame that
2 on the parole board.
3 But that's the individual.
4 That's -- I don't believe anything is
5 100 percent.
6 That's one out of 10 that they missed, but
7 everybody else shouldn't have to suffer from that.
8 So the tools that's in place should be in
9 place, and it should be followed.
10 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Okay. Thank you for that.
11 Other questions?
12 SENATOR PHILLIPS: I have a question for
13 Mr. Royall.
14 Thank you.
15 And, again, I want to echo what
16 Senator Gallivan said; that this is -- it really
17 seems to be a broken system. And the only way we're
18 going to fix it is we all work together.
19 So, thank you.
20 You used the word "presumed" rehabilitation.
21 And I carefully listened to you use the word
22 "presumed."
23 So, please, correct me if I'm wrong, but it
24 sounds like the system isn't great when it comes to
25 rehabilitation.
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1 Do you have suggestions on how we might
2 legislatively guide the parole board, or to help
3 that rehabilitation process?
4 Isn't that what our goal is for an
5 individual?
6 JAMES ROYALL: Well, the rehabilitation
7 process, for me, is not a job of the parole board.
8 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Right?
9 JAMES ROYALL: It's the job of the prison
10 system.
11 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Of the prison system.
12 JAMES ROYALL: So, I don't believe that
13 there's many structures in place inside the prison
14 system, created by the prison system, that speaks to
15 rehabilitation.
16 On paper, you might see that they have a
17 school in every prison. They may have programs in
18 every prison.
19 And for the paper, it looks good.
20 But individual (indiscernible) --
21 SENATOR PHILLIPS: But in reality?
22 JAMES ROYALL: -- in reality, of course, it's
23 not like that.
24 It's like a basketball team has beautiful
25 people on their team. It looks like they're going
125
1 to win, and then they're in last place.
2 So, what actually happens, when I said --
3 also spoke about self-rehabilitation, self-advocacy,
4 these individuals, they utilize those programs, they
5 ace those programs, and then they're stuck. There's
6 no more left.
7 When they're sitting in front of the parole
8 board, they speak about all of the
9 incarcerated-individuals' created programs, or the
10 organizations that have created programs, that
11 programs that are viable to society, programs that
12 speaks to recidivism.
13 Not programs that just speaks to education,
14 which there is none there.
15 You know, you have two to, maybe, three
16 different types of educational systems in there.
17 You have an adult basic education system, and
18 that's for anybody that is not over, I believe, the
19 ninth-, or eighth-grade, reading level.
20 Everybody goes into this one class.
21 Everybody is not on the same level.
22 Then you have the pre-GED and GED class. And
23 we know what those are about.
24 So, I believe they just have to restructure,
25 really look at these things inside of the prison,
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1 restructure it, because it's presumed from the
2 outside, from society, that rehabilitation is going
3 on, and that's why individuals are getting released.
4 But, they are getting released because of the
5 creative programs; those programs that speaks to the
6 growth, the programs that speaks to the development,
7 the programs that are progressive, that allows them
8 to speak to their transformation, to their paradigm
9 shift, and make the release.
10 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Thank you.
11 I'd like to just mention one thing.
12 It's slightly off topic, but, through the
13 Heroin and Opiate Task Force that
14 Senator Fred Akshar -- who else is co-chairing --
15 and Senator Jacobs, and there's someone else, but
16 I can't remember -- and Senator Amedore -- thank
17 you -- we did public hearings across New York State,
18 to listen on how the Senate could get involved and
19 help the epidemic that we have throughout our
20 country.
21 And one of the many things that we heard was
22 in our jail systems.
23 And that it was Sheriff Apple in the
24 Albany County that showed us, that if we could
25 invest some state dollars, our taxpayer dollars,
127
1 into programs in the jail system, the level of
2 recidivism goes down significantly.
3 So, I am proud to say, here in Nassau County,
4 we were able to give them over $200,000 just a
5 couple weeks ago for exactly that; to help sponsor
6 rehabilitation programs when it comes to drug
7 addiction, so they can capture these individuals so
8 the recidivism rate goes down.
9 JAMES ROYALL: That's great.
10 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Well, thank you for your
11 testimony.
12 SENATOR PHILLIPS: Yeah, thank you very much.
13 SENATOR GALLIVAN: I would like to thank
14 everybody for their testimony, and their patience,
15 of course.
16 Oral testimony, as I mentioned earlier, is --
17 will be available immediately on the Senate website
18 from yesterday and today.
19 Ultimately, all the written testimony, the
20 various information-request submissions, will also
21 be on the Senate website.
22 The written testimony will not be immediate.
23 And the ultimate report that comes out of
24 this, and recommendations, again, can be found
25 there.
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1 I would like to thank -- oh, sir, go right
2 ahead, if you have more.
3 JAMES ROYALL: I do have one additional thing
4 I just wanted to mention.
5 When I was speaking of John MacKenzie, that's
6 a serious situation.
7 The individual committed suicide.
8 He was a very progressive individual. Very.
9 There's a lot of individuals in there like
10 John MacKenzie, and they're going to the board,
11 getting hit eight times.
12 I know of a fellow named Marvin Lewis.
13 He's a graduate of RTA (rehabilitation
14 through the arts). He has numerous college degrees.
15 He hasn't had an infraction within 30 years.
16 He doesn't have a homicide, or anything like
17 that, but he do have involvement -- (indiscernible)
18 involvement with a police officer.
19 The police officer is not opposing his
20 release, yet he's still getting hit.
21 These are the things I'm talking about.
22 You know, this individual is helping
23 individuals inside. He's doing a lot, he's reaching
24 out.
25 And these are the very things, before we, you
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1 know, have these individuals killing themselves, you
2 know, we have to look into this stuff.
3 You know, and accountability is a big part of
4 it, which you spoke about. You gave dollars to the
5 prison system.
6 There has to be accountability somewhere
7 here, because giving it just to the system, somebody
8 in the system is not doing their jobs.
9 So there has to be some type of
10 accountability, measurement, some type of barometer,
11 for our dollars that's going in there.
12 SENATOR GALLIVAN: That's exactly what I was
13 getting at with the transparency and accountability.
14 So we get to the point of, the law is the
15 law, currently. We have factors to consider and
16 standards to meet.
17 It's my belief that the board hasn't followed
18 that, and -- all standards in all the cases. And
19 I think other people share that.
20 But then beyond that, I don't know that
21 there's any mechanism in place, from the Executive
22 Branch, to ensure that they're -- they are following
23 the standards.
24 They are independent; however, there should
25 be some sort of check and balance, in my view, that
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1 if they're not doing what the law requires, that
2 somebody can address the individual.
3 And it might just simply be training.
4 It might be greater transparency in
5 reporting; that there's more public reporting of
6 their activities that are out there.
7 But that's actually what I was getting at,
8 the point that you made.
9 And thanks for bringing that up.
10 JAMES REDDAN: All right.
11 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Okay. Are you good now?
12 JAMES ROYALL: Yeah.
13 SENATOR GALLIVAN: All right.
14 I am going to turn over in a moment to
15 Senator Phillips.
16 But I just want to remind people about
17 everything, it will be on the website, ultimately.
18 And I thank everybody for being here, and
19 dealing with these very -- in my view, very
20 important public-policy topics.
21 And I'll turn it back over to our Long Island
22 Senators.
23 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Excuse me.
24 What's the deadline for anybody submitting
25 written testimony?
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1 Is there a final deadline?
2 SENATOR GALLIVAN: No, but we can make one.
3 We can go one week from -- seven days from
4 today.
5 That was not asked.
6 SENATOR PHILLIPS: So I just would like to
7 end, to thank you all again for coming to the
8 7th Senate District, particularly Senator Gallivan
9 who traveled the farthest, Senator Marcellino and
10 Senator Boyle, for participating in this;
11 For the school board superintendents;
12 For the PTA, or, PTS, participants here;
13 For the Nassau County Board of Elections, for
14 being here to listen;
15 Law enforcement;
16 And the defenders' organizations.
17 But probably the -- our heartfelt thanks to
18 those, the victims' families, who were kind enough
19 to come and share their stories.
20 So have a wonderful afternoon, everyone.
21 God bless you all, and God bless our great
22 country.
23 (Whereupon, at approximately 1:16 p.m.,
24 the public hearing concluded, and adjourned.)
25 ---oOo---