Regular Session - February 7, 2006
604
1 NEW YORK STATE SENATE
2
3
4 THE STENOGRAPHIC RECORD
5
6
7
8
9 ALBANY, NEW YORK
10 February 7, 2006
11 3:16 p.m.
12
13
14 REGULAR SESSION
15
16
17
18 LT. GOVERNOR MARY O. DONOHUE, President
19 STEVEN M. BOGGESS, Secretary
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25
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 THE PRESIDENT: The Senate will
3 please come to order.
4 I ask everyone present to please
5 rise and repeat with me the Pledge of
6 Allegiance.
7 (Whereupon, the assemblage recited
8 the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)
9 THE PRESIDENT: In the absence of
10 clergy, may we bow our heads in a moment of
11 silence, please.
12 (Whereupon, the assemblage
13 respected a moment of silence.)
14 THE PRESIDENT: Reading of the
15 Journal.
16 THE SECRETARY: In Senate,
17 Monday, February 6, the Senate met pursuant to
18 adjournment. The Journal of Sunday,
19 February 5, was read and approved. On motion,
20 Senate adjourned.
21 THE PRESIDENT: Without
22 objection, the Journal stands approved as
23 read.
24 Presentation of petitions.
25 Messages from the Assembly.
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1 Messages from the Governor.
2 Reports of standing committees.
3 Reports of select committees.
4 Communications and reports from
5 state officers.
6 Reports of standing committees.
7 The Secretary will read.
8 THE SECRETARY: Senator
9 DeFrancisco, from the Committee on Judiciary,
10 reports the following nominations.
11 As a judge of the Court of Claims,
12 Lawrence V. Cullen, of Forest Hills.
13 THE PRESIDENT: Senator
14 DeFrancisco.
15 SENATOR DeFRANCISCO: Madam
16 President, I'm proud to rise to move the
17 nomination of Lawrence V. Cullen, of Forest
18 Hills, as judge of the Court of Claims. It's
19 an excellent appointment by Governor Pataki.
20 His background and the
21 qualifications were fully reviewed, and he was
22 found to be well qualified. And earlier this
23 day, the Senate Judiciary Committee
24 unanimously recommended his nomination to the
25 full Senate.
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1 I would request that you would
2 please acknowledge Senator Maltese to second
3 this motion.
4 THE PRESIDENT: Senator Maltese.
5 SENATOR MALTESE: Yes, I first
6 acknowledge a great debt of gratitude to
7 Governor Pataki for this appointment.
8 The appointment to the Court of
9 Claims of Lawrence V. Cullen follows in the
10 tradition of bipartisan appointments and
11 enhances the judiciary in Queens County, as in
12 other portions of this state.
13 This particular appointment, Judge
14 Cullen, has the advantage of appointing
15 someone to the bench who has just recently
16 served a too-brief term filling in as a
17 justice of the Supreme Court in Queens County.
18 His credentials are indeed very
19 impressive. But in addition to impressive
20 credentials at the bench and bar, he in
21 addition is a disabled vet, a veteran of the
22 United States Marine Corps.
23 And I'd like to, if briefly, just
24 enumerate that he has won the following
25 decorations from our great country: Combat
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1 Duty, Republic of Vietnam, Bronze Star with
2 Device, Air Medal, Purple Heart, Vietnam
3 Campaign Medal with Good Conduct Medal,
4 Vietnam Service Medal, National Defense Medal,
5 Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm,
6 Presidential Unit Citation, Navy Unit
7 Citation, Meritorious Unit Citation, New York
8 State Conspicuous Service Cross.
9 Most of all, he exemplifies what is
10 good and great in our country. Coming from a
11 family of six children, with his parents dying
12 at a very young age, he made his own way in
13 the world and has achieved a great deal so
14 that he today is before us to be confirmed as
15 a Court of Claims judge for the State of
16 New York.
17 He has many, many honors and many
18 professional memberships and accolades. He
19 was created a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre of
20 Jerusalem in 1991 by His Holiness Pope Paul
21 II, elevated to Commander and Knight Commander
22 and Knight Grand Cross.
23 There are many other achievements
24 that he has accomplished in his life. He is
25 here today with his wife, Margaret, his
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1 daughter, Anya, his son, Patrick. And a good
2 and close friend and advisor, a mentor, Judge
3 Al Lerner is here with him today.
4 Madam President, I am very pleased
5 today to second the nomination of Larry Cullen
6 for a judge of the Court of Claims.
7 THE PRESIDENT: Senator Malcolm
8 Smith.
9 SENATOR MALCOLM SMITH: Thank you
10 very much, Madam President. I also rise to
11 second the nomination of Lawrence Cullen.
12 You know, Senator DeFrancisco made
13 the statement earlier in our committee, and
14 it's very true, there's very few sole
15 practitioners who actually rise to or ascend
16 to the bench to the point of being on the
17 Court of Claims.
18 Lawrence Cullen, who as a sole
19 practitioner distinguished himself in the
20 borough of Queens in the City of New York, in
21 addition, the state of New York now knows the
22 benefit of Lawrence Cullen and his intellect
23 with regard to the bench.
24 He and his wife have two children,
25 their daughter, Anya, and their son, Patrick.
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1 And most importantly, and I think
2 Senator Maltese talked about it, Lawrence
3 Cullen actually served his country as well.
4 Amongst many of his accomplishments, he also
5 has a Purple Heart, which I know many people
6 hold dear to them.
7 Lawrence, I know you're up there --
8 there you are. He's up there.
9 A very honorable individual, and I
10 think the Governor deserves the type of praise
11 for this particular person he put on the
12 bench. It's not often you get somebody who's
13 just an everyday person, and that's the way
14 Judge Cullen is -- just an ordinary guy,
15 doesn't have any chips on his shoulders, not
16 pretentious, somebody you can approach at all
17 times. And I think the Court of Claims is
18 going to do well by having him on the bench.
19 It's my pleasure to second his
20 nomination.
21 THE PRESIDENT: Senator Ada
22 Smith.
23 SENATOR ADA SMITH: Thank you
24 very much, Madam President. I too would like
25 to second the nomination of Lawrence V.
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1 Cullen.
2 And I'm very proud today and I'm
3 thankful to the Governor for both of these
4 nominees, because I have the privilege of
5 representing a part of Forest Hills and a part
6 of Howard Beach, along with Senator Maltese.
7 But I'd like to note that Lawrence
8 Cullen was a product of the CUNY School of
9 Law. And most of us from the city hold CUNY
10 very dear to us. And he's very dear to
11 Senator Malcolm Smith because he went to
12 Fordham.
13 But he has truly practiced in what
14 we consider the vineyards. He has proven
15 himself over and over again. And he is truly
16 deserving of this honor, and we wish him well.
17 Thank you.
18 THE PRESIDENT: The question now
19 is on the nomination of Lawrence V. Cullen, of
20 Forest Hills, as a judge of the Court of
21 Claims. All in favor please signify by saying
22 aye.
23 (Response of "Aye.")
24 THE PRESIDENT: Opposed, nay.
25 (No response.)
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1 THE PRESIDENT: The nominee is
2 hereby confirmed.
3 Congratulations, Judge Cullen. And
4 best wishes for continued success.
5 (Applause.)
6 THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
7 will continue to read.
8 THE SECRETARY: As a judge of the
9 Court of Claims, Cassandra M. Mullen, of
10 Howard Beach.
11 THE PRESIDENT: Senator
12 DeFrancisco.
13 SENATOR DeFRANCISCO: I'm again
14 proud to rise to move the nomination of
15 Cassandra M. Mullen for Court of Claims,
16 another excellent choice by Governor Pataki.
17 Her qualifications have been
18 thoroughly reviewed. She met this morning
19 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, was
20 found to be well qualified, and her nomination
21 was also unanimously referred to the full
22 Senate for a vote.
23 I again would like to request that
24 you would please recognize Senator Maltese for
25 a second.
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1 THE PRESIDENT: Senator Maltese.
2 SENATOR MALTESE: Yes, Madam
3 President, I again wish to express sincere
4 appreciation to Governor George Pataki for
5 this excellent appointment.
6 The fact that both appointments
7 were made in one day reflect on a true
8 bipartisan spirit for the Judiciary and bodes
9 well for the continued health and vital of our
10 judiciary in New York State.
11 Cassandra Mullen is here today as a
12 result of a long and distinguished record of
13 achievement as a trial attorney. Her
14 background includes many, many honors -- at
15 law school, at St. Johns Law School, and
16 receiving a scholarship to law school -- but,
17 in addition, many, many medals and
18 achievements: Best Speaker in the Nation,
19 Irving Kaufman Securities Law Moot
20 Competition; winner, Reverend Tinnelly Moot
21 Court Award; winner, Bosch Award, First Place
22 Speaker; winner, 1986 scholarship award
23 granted by the Defense Association; Excellence
24 in Appellate Advocacy; Who's Who in American
25 Law Schools.
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1 She has just -- it would take an
2 extended period of time to indicate some of
3 the positions that she has performed in in
4 great distinction. But they include the
5 Nassau County District Attorney's Office,
6 where she served two years; Legal Aid of
7 Nassau County, where she served three years;
8 New York State Department of Law, where she
9 served two years; Travelers Insurance Company
10 for five years; the American International
11 Group for one year; the New York State
12 Attorney General's office for two years; a
13 private firm, Valenti & Mullen; Countrywide
14 Insurance Company, where she served for a
15 year; and just recently where she served the
16 City of Yonkers as corporation counsel and
17 served with great distinction.
18 She received the approval and
19 approbation of not only myself but Senator
20 Nicholas Spano. I wish to also indicate that
21 Senator Padavan and myself originally had
22 recommended her to the Governor, and we're
23 very, very pleased that he saw fit to appoint
24 her to this distinguished court.
25 She is accompanied today by her
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1 daughter, Victoria Mansfield; her mother,
2 Eleanor Mullen; her brother, Jack Mullen; her
3 sister-in-law, Sandra Hirsch; aunt, Mary
4 Gramuglia; cousin, John Gramuglia; and her
5 daughter's friends, Kerri Ann Gayle and
6 Jessica Hamel.
7 Mr. President, I am very pleased
8 and honored to submit today and second the
9 nomination of Cassandra Mullen as a judge of
10 the New York State Court of Claims.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
12 Connor.
13 SENATOR CONNOR: Thank you, Mr.
14 President.
15 I had the distinct pleasure to meet
16 Cassandra Mullen five or six months ago. And,
17 you know, I've been a lawyer for -- I'm not
18 even going to say -- over 35 years. And you
19 know, you see other lawyers, you meet other
20 lawyers, you engage, you work with other
21 lawyers. But I've all found the best way or
22 the way that you most realize the quality of a
23 lawyer is when the lawyer is your adversary.
24 And I met Ms. Mullen in a case -- we're
25 actually waiting for a decision. She withdrew
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1 two weeks ago as opposing counsel because of
2 the Governor's nomination.
3 But I have to say, having her as an
4 advocate, at first I -- after our first
5 encounter in court, I said to my client,
6 "They've got a real lawyer on the other side.
7 She's really smart and she's really good and
8 knows what she's doing." Because you learn
9 that when you're standing next to someone in
10 court and they're your adversary.
11 Secondly, I learned as the case
12 progressed that she's a pleasant person to
13 deal with, that she is a courteous lawyer.
14 And those of us who have been
15 lawyers for a long time remember certainly a
16 time when that was the measure of the bar, the
17 kind of professional courtesies we afforded
18 one another. Hopefully -- and from various
19 benches, the lack of that in some younger
20 lawyers has been decried recently in the last
21 couple of years.
22 But I can tell you, Mr. President,
23 that Cassandra Mullen is a professional, she's
24 smart, she's a vigorous advocate -- I want to
25 assure her client, she's a vigorous advocate
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1 for her client's cause, and she is a pleasure
2 to work with in terms of the kind of
3 courtesies that she extends to fellow members
4 of the bar and to adversaries.
5 So I am delighted to vote in favor
6 of this nominee. I congratulate the Governor
7 on such a wonderful appointment. I
8 congratulate Senator Maltese on his
9 recommendation of such a fine candidate for
10 the court.
11 Thank you.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
13 Ada Smith.
14 SENATOR ADA SMITH: Thank you,
15 Mr. President.
16 I too rise to commend the Governor
17 for this wonderful nomination and to thank
18 Senator Maltese for once again being so wise
19 in recommending my neighbor.
20 And I know that she is going to
21 make each and every one of us proud. And as
22 Senator Connor says, she brings much to this
23 position. She brings grace, she brings
24 knowledge, and she brings experience.
25 Thank you, Governor Pataki.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Any
2 other Senator wish to be heard on the
3 nomination?
4 The question, then, is on the
5 confirmation of Cassandra M. Mullen as a judge
6 of the Court of Claims. All those in favor
7 signify by saying aye.
8 (Response of "Aye.")
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Those
10 opposed, nay.
11 (No response.)
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Judge
13 Mullen is confirmed.
14 Judge Mullen is with us today in
15 the gallery. Judge. She's accompanied by her
16 daughter, Victoria Mansfield; by her mother,
17 Eleanor Mullen; her brother, Jack; her
18 sister-in-law, Sandra Hirsch; her aunt, Mary
19 Gramuglia; her cousin, John Gramuglia; and her
20 daughter's friends, Kerri Ann Gayle and
21 Jessica Hamel.
22 Judge, we congratulate you and we
23 wish you well.
24 (Applause.)
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
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1 Secretary will read the report of the Finance
2 Committee.
3 THE SECRETARY: Senator Johnson,
4 from the Committee on Finance, reports the
5 following nominations:
6 As a member of the Ogdensburg
7 Bridge and Port Authority, Donald J. Hooper,
8 of Ogdensburg.
9 As a member of the Veterans Affairs
10 Commission, Anthony S. Esposito, of
11 Guilderland.
12 As members of the Medical Advisory
13 Committee, Carl P. Sahler, Jr., M.D., Ph.D.,
14 of Canandaigua, and Kathleen Benson Smith, of
15 Oswego.
16 As a member of the Mental Health
17 Services Council, John V. Oldfield, Ph.D., of
18 Syracuse.
19 As a member of the Board of
20 Visitors of the St. Lawrence Psychiatric
21 Center, Richard M. LaValley, of Canton.
22 And as a member of the Board of
23 Visitors of the New York State Home for
24 Veterans and their Dependents at Oxford,
25 Richard M. Pedro, of Owego.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
2 question is on the confirmation of the
3 above-named nominees. All those in favor
4 signify by saying aye.
5 (Response of "Aye.")
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Those
7 opposed, nay.
8 (No response.)
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
10 nominees are confirmed.
11 The Secretary will continue to
12 read.
13 THE SECRETARY: As a member of
14 the State Civil Service Commission, Caroline
15 W. Ahl, of Loudonville.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
17 Skelos.
18 SENATOR SKELOS: Move the
19 nomination.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
21 question is on the confirmation of Carolyn W.
22 Ahl as a member of the State Civil Service
23 Commission. All those in favor signify by
24 saying aye.
25 (Response of "Aye.")
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Those
2 opposed, nay.
3 (No response.)
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
5 nominee is confirmed.
6 Caroline Ahl is with us in the
7 gallery here today, and she's joined by her
8 husband, Dave.
9 We wish you well and congratulate
10 you.
11 (Applause.)
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
13 Secretary will continue to read.
14 THE SECRETARY: As a member of
15 the New York State Employment Relations Board,
16 Dean H. Leith, Jr., of Troy.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
18 Bruno.
19 SENATOR BRUNO: Mr. President and
20 colleagues, I am proud to endorse the
21 Governor's recommendation to serve on the
22 Employment Relations Board -- a neighbor, a
23 friend, a person who has vast experiences in
24 business: Dean Leith.
25 Dean participated early in his
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1 career in the formation of a company with nine
2 employees doing about $200,000 first year.
3 Grew the company to about $150 million, 1100
4 employees, and moved on with his life.
5 He's got a tremendous background.
6 We're proud to be able to recommend him and to
7 endorse the Governor's nomination for the
8 Employment Relations Board.
9 I would move the nomination, Mr.
10 President.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
12 question is on the confirmation of Dean Leith
13 as a member of the New York State Employment
14 Relations Board. All those in favor signify
15 by saying aye.
16 (Response of "Aye.")
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Those
18 opposed, nay.
19 (No response.)
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
21 nominee is confirmed.
22 Mr. Leith is with us in the gallery
23 today.
24 And, sir, we congratulate you and
25 we wish you well with your duties.
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1 (Applause.)
2 SENATOR BRUNO: Mr. President,
3 can we at this time return to messages from
4 the Assembly.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Messages
6 from the Assembly.
7 SENATOR BRUNO: And is there a
8 message from the Assembly referencing
9 Assembly 9462, a bill that previously passed
10 both houses, was vetoed by the Governor and
11 unanimously overridden in the Assembly
12 yesterday?
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Yes,
14 there is. The chair hands down a message from
15 the Assembly.
16 The Secretary will read.
17 THE SECRETARY: Assembly Bill
18 Number 9462, Veto Number 1, an act to amend
19 the Public Health Law.
20 SENATOR BRUNO: I would move,
21 Mr. President, to override the Governor's
22 veto.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
24 Secretary will read the title of the bill.
25 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
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1 88, by Member of the Assembly Gottfried,
2 Assembly Print Number 9462, Veto Message
3 Number 1, an act to amend the Public Health
4 Law.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
6 is before the house.
7 I'll put the motion of Senator
8 Bruno to override the veto before you.
9 Senators, ought the same become a law
10 notwithstanding the veto of the Governor?
11 The Secretary will read the last
12 section.
13 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
14 act shall take effect immediately.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
16 roll.
17 (The Secretary called the roll.)
18 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
20 motion to override the veto is carried.
21 SENATOR BRUNO: Mr. President,
22 can we at this time return to motions and
23 resolutions.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Motions
25 and resolutions.
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1 Senator Nozzolio.
2 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Mr. President,
3 I move that the following bills be discharged
4 from their respective committees and be
5 recommitted with instructions to strike the
6 enacting clause: 2062A, 2063A, 2442, 2443,
7 3822, 5745A.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: So
9 ordered.
10 Senator Bruno.
11 SENATOR BRUNO: Mr. President, I
12 believe I have a privileged resolution at the
13 desk. I would ask at this time that it be
14 read in its entirety and move for its
15 immediate adoption.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
17 Secretary will read the privileged resolution.
18 THE SECRETARY: By Senator Bruno,
19 Legislative Resolution Number 3409,
20 recognizing February 10, 2006, as Blue Friday.
21 "WHEREAS, The State of New York
22 takes great pride in participating in
23 significant days of recognition; and
24 "WHEREAS, Albany radio station WGNA
25 has teamed up with the Capital District
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1 Chapter of Concerns of Police Survivors, Inc.,
2 known as COPS, in recognizing February 10,
3 2006, as 'Blue Friday' in honor of all law
4 enforcement officers who have given their
5 lives in the line of duty as well as all of
6 those still serving; and
7 "WHEREAS, COPS, organized in 1984
8 with approximately 110 members, has grown into
9 a nationwide nonprofit organization with 48
10 chapters throughout the United States and an
11 affiliate in the United Kingdom. Its mission
12 is to help rebuild the lives of survivors of
13 law enforcement officers killed in the line of
14 duty by serving as a clearinghouse for federal
15 and state benefits information and resources
16 that may be available to the surviving
17 families; and
18 "WHEREAS, COPS also provides
19 training to law enforcement agencies on
20 survivor victimization issues and educates the
21 public of the need to support the law
22 enforcement profession and its survivors; and
23 "WHEREAS, Each year between 140 and
24 160 officers are killed in the line of duty
25 and their families and coworkers are left to
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1 cope with the tragic loss; and
2 "WHEREAS, Today COPS' membership,
3 including spouses, children, parents,
4 siblings, significant others and coworkers of
5 officers killed in the line of duty consists
6 of more than 12,000 families; and
7 "WHEREAS, February 10 is a reminder
8 to pay tribute to those in the law enforcement
9 community who have made the ultimate
10 sacrifice; and
11 "WHEREAS, On February 10, 2006,
12 from 6:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m., WGNA,
13 DeNooyer Chevrolet, and COPS will be taking a
14 Donation for a Carnation, selling blue
15 carnations and special edition 'Blue Friday'
16 T-shirts at DeNooyer Chevrolet, Colonie,
17 New York, and at the Wilton Mall, Saratoga
18 Springs, New York. All proceeds will go
19 directly to COPS; and
20 "WHEREAS, In addition, the Western
21 Chapter of COPS, headquartered in Buffalo, and
22 the Southern Chapter, headquartered in
23 Binghamton, are encouraging supporters to wear
24 blue on that day; and
25 "WHEREAS, The State of New York is
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1 eternally grateful for the service of its
2 brave men and women in law enforcement and
3 applauds the efforts of COPS to assist the
4 families of those who have made the ultimate
5 sacrifice; now, therefore, be it
6 "RESOLVED, That this Legislative
7 Body pause in its deliberations to recognize
8 February 10, 2006, as 'Blue Friday'; and be it
9 further
10 "RESOLVED, That copies of this
11 resolution, suitably engrossed, be transmitted
12 to WGNA and COPS."
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
14 Bruno.
15 SENATOR BRUNO: Mr. President and
16 colleagues, this resolution, you heard it, sad
17 in the message that it relates that 140, 160
18 people who step out, step up -- to do what?
19 Face what truly is an enemy out there of
20 society.
21 We celebrate constantly and
22 recognize the men and women in uniform by the
23 hundreds of thousands all over the world,
24 keeping peace, fighting for peace, protecting
25 our liberties. These people in blue or in
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1 uniform who step out every single day.
2 And many of them, as we've heard,
3 140 to 160 a year, give their lives in the
4 fight against evil. They don't have to, they
5 elect to. And they leave behind wives,
6 husbands, children who suffer the pain and the
7 trauma and the anguish.
8 So it's appropriate that we,
9 through this resolution, recognize this Friday
10 as "Blue Friday," respecting and honoring the
11 memory of so many that have made the ultimate
12 sacrifice.
13 Locally I see Mayor Jennings is
14 here. Lieutenant John Finn, not too many
15 months ago, gave his life on the streets a few
16 minutes from here, leaving a family behind,
17 like the 12,000-plus families that are out
18 there.
19 But there are people who step up to
20 help alleviate the pain. We can never replace
21 the individuals that are gone, but they help
22 with the trauma and alleviate the pain in
23 life.
24 And I would just like to
25 acknowledge some of the individuals who help
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1 so much, raising money to help the families in
2 a transition in their lives. Some of them are
3 here: WGNA radio hosts Sean McMaster and
4 Richie Philips and other representatives of
5 the press; Albany Police Officer Pat Fox; Town
6 of Corinth Officer Somma; Troy Police Officer
7 Bob Fitzgerald.
8 We really thank you for your
9 service for those that you represent, thank
10 you for everything that you do on a minute,
11 hourly, daily basis to make a quality of life
12 for all of us that we can enjoy as free
13 people. Because you can live in fear on the
14 streets in your business and in your homes, or
15 you can live as free people. And it's these
16 people in the front lines, many of them
17 prepared and have given their lives so that we
18 all can enjoy a quality of life.
19 Thank you, Mr. President.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
21 Farley.
22 SENATOR FARLEY: Thank you, Mr.
23 President.
24 I guess the resolution of Senator
25 Bruno has said it all. But let me just say
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1 this. That Blue Friday, this Friday coming
2 up, is a day that we're going to recognize and
3 support the police forces throughout our state
4 and nation that really have put their lives on
5 the line for us.
6 There's barely a community,
7 including my own in Schenectady, that hasn't
8 lost police officers in the line of duty.
9 And, you know, I have to pay
10 tribute to the number-one radio station in
11 this area, WGNA -- one of my favorites,
12 incidentally -- with the dynamic duo who's up
13 there in the audience, Sean McMaster and
14 Richie Philips, and the other officers of
15 WGNA, for making this possible to go out and
16 raise some money on behalf of COPS. They're
17 going to be selling blue carnations and
18 T-shirts and so forth at the DeNooyer
19 Chevrolet and Wilton Mall and be there live.
20 You know, it's so important that
21 this Capital District and the area get out and
22 support this effort because what we're doing
23 is supporting the families and children and
24 loved ones of officers who have lost their
25 lives.
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1 You know, the police officers that
2 were acknowledged here, we're very honored to
3 have you here in the front row. But we also
4 have some police officers that serve here in
5 the Senate. They had a career here. And with
6 that, I'm going to yield to them and I'm sure
7 that they may want to say something about
8 their brethren.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
10 Golden.
11 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, Mr.
12 President.
13 Thank you, Senator Farley and
14 Senator Bruno, for your comments. Thank you,
15 officers, for being here today.
16 "Blue Friday," on February 10,
17 2006, is a day of honor for all those police
18 officers that we've lost across this country.
19 And if you look at just the number
20 that we've lost here in the city and state of
21 New York, just in a few short months we've
22 lost over four police officers: Kevin Lee,
23 Officer Lee, Officer Frank Hennessy, Officer
24 Danny Enchautegui, and Dillon Stewart gunned
25 down in the streets in the city of New York.
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1 And if you take a look at the
2 school safety agent, Vivian Samuels, and
3 Deputy Sheriff Eric Loiselle from the Essex
4 County Sheriff's Department, and a senior
5 investigator, Thomas O'Neill, and Police
6 Officer William Rivera, who all died this past
7 year fighting for this great city and this
8 great state. Over 140 to 160 officers each
9 year killed in the line of duty.
10 Just this fall we've seen how many
11 officers have died and how many were wounded,
12 nine in the City of New York since June.
13 These deaths compelled me to act quickly with
14 my colleagues here in this chamber and in the
15 Assembly chamber in drafting comprehensive
16 legislation, the Crimes Against Police Act, so
17 that we can stop this brutal killing of
18 officers here in the city and state of
19 New York.
20 As a former New York City police
21 officer, I have firsthand experience with the
22 dangers that our finest face each and every
23 day and the heartbreak experienced by all of
24 us when a police officer is killed in the line
25 of duty.
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1 I applaud each and every man and
2 woman that wears blue here in the city and
3 state and across this great nation. And I
4 applaud WGNA, who won the New York State
5 Broadcasters Community Service Award for this
6 most recent event.
7 We cannot pay enough attention to
8 our officers and to their families. What this
9 group does, it gives counselling to the
10 members or the survivors, the wives and
11 husbands, it takes their children to summer
12 camps and gives them counseling, and it gets
13 the family out and involved in day-to-day
14 life.
15 And you've done so many great
16 things. We applaud you officers. We applaud
17 all of the officers here in the State of
18 New York. Thank you and God bless your
19 efforts.
20 Thank you very, very much.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
22 Volker.
23 SENATOR VOLKER: Mr. President,
24 it's been a while since I was a police
25 officer -- actually, 32 years, since I just
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1 began my 30th year on February 3rd in the
2 Senate here. I missed one month between a
3 defeat in '74 and my election in '75.
4 While I was with the Depew Police
5 Department, I was president of the PBA and I
6 was active in the statewide law enforcement
7 people. And the reason I'm mentioning that is
8 I think one of the problems that we're dealing
9 with in this state right now -- and although
10 it doesn't pertain directly to the situation
11 today, we're very happy that WGNA and so many
12 people are supporting the wives, families, and
13 so forth of police officers.
14 It's a -- the new target,
15 unfortunately, of business is police officers,
16 and complaining about their benefits and
17 complaining about their salaries.
18 I always laugh a little bit because
19 all the police officers that have been killed
20 in Erie County in the last thirty years, I
21 could name every one of them. And in fact my
22 office, I think like most former police
23 officers, pays very special attention to the
24 families of those that have been killed. In
25 fact, I've helped getting jobs and education
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1 and so forth.
2 Because there's one thing I do
3 know, and that is that a law enforcement
4 officer's life is a life that is difficult.
5 And it's difficult for their families. So
6 difficult, in fact, that when they are killed,
7 it crushes the very fabric of the families.
8 And whether they're killed, by the way, by
9 bullet or knives or in an accident, whatever
10 it is, it is very, very difficult.
11 And as a former police officer and
12 as a person that represents legally and here
13 in the Senate, I think, a lot of police
14 officers, let me thank all those that are
15 ready to help. Because I just don't believe
16 and I think our problem is I just don't
17 believe people really understand, unless
18 you've been there, the kind of problems that
19 police officers have been confronted with, not
20 only in New York City and Buffalo -- and in
21 Buffalo we're way short of cops, we know that.
22 They don't even realize in the
23 county that the local government got rid of
24 the sheriff's department undercover people in
25 Buffalo, and they're surprised that the drug
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1 problems in Buffalo seem to be increasing.
2 And I only mention this because
3 there is an ignorance of how many law
4 enforcement people there are and how many it
5 takes to keep places safe, whether it's
6 Amherst, New York, or whether it's Depew,
7 New York, where I live, or Yonkers or the City
8 of New York or Albany. And I know a lot of
9 Albany police officers. Unfortunately, I've
10 known several who have died.
11 All I can say is thank you, on
12 behalf of this Senate. Senator Bruno said it
13 a lot better than I can. But also thank you
14 to those people that pay attention to the
15 families and to the children and to those that
16 are left behind. And I applaud you.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
18 Morahan.
19 SENATOR MORAHAN: Thank you, Mr.
20 President.
21 I rise today to salute the men in
22 blue, the men and women who serve on the front
23 lines, providing our safety, protecting us and
24 our children and our grandchildren.
25 I stand also in honor of my
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1 father-in-law, my wife's father, Officer James
2 M. Killion, who on January 29, 1935, was shot
3 dead as a New York City police officer trying
4 to thwart a holdup on Fifth Avenue in New York
5 City.
6 His young widow -- he was only 29
7 years of age. He had two children; my wife
8 was only 18 months old. That young widow,
9 Nellie Thompson Killion, received $125 a month
10 from 1935 till the 1950s, and she raised her
11 two children, Joan and Helen, and supported
12 her mother and her father and went to work
13 every day of her life.
14 And I know what it is to see that
15 impact on his children, who virtually never
16 knew their father. And he sacrificed his life
17 to the people of New York City. And I'm sure
18 at that time they had felt he was the last
19 police officer who would be cut down in the
20 line of duty. But it goes on.
21 My wife is a founding member of the
22 Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, which
23 she was there for the inauguration with
24 President Bush. We brought our grandchildren
25 there to have them understand what sacrifice
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1 is for the community.
2 And these tragedies and these acts
3 of violence continue today and will continue
4 tomorrow, unfortunately. And I think anything
5 we do as a society to support the families of
6 those who laid down their lives so we could
7 live in peace and in safety -- they need that
8 support.
9 It's my honor to say thank you to
10 the men and women in blue, to the law
11 enforcement people across this nation who
12 stand in defense of our homes and our lives.
13 Thank you. It is indeed an honor to
14 participate today and wish everyone well on
15 "Blue Friday."
16 Thank you very much.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
18 question, then, is on the resolution. All
19 those in favor signify by saying aye.
20 (Response of "Aye.")
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Those
22 opposed, nay.
23 (No response.)
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
25 resolution is unanimously adopted.
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1 Senator Bruno.
2 SENATOR BRUNO: Mr. President,
3 can I suggest that we open this resolution to
4 all the members in the chamber unless they go
5 to the desk privately and ask not to be put
6 on.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: All
8 members will be listed as sponsoring the
9 resolution unless they notify the desk
10 otherwise.
11 SENATOR BRUNO: Can we give a
12 standing ovation to the men represented here.
13 (Standing ovation.)
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
15 Bruno.
16 SENATOR BRUNO: Thank you, Mr.
17 President.
18 Mr. President, can we at this time
19 adopt the Resolution Calendar, with the
20 exception of Resolution 3383.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: All in
22 favor of adopting the Resolution Calendar,
23 with the exception of Resolution 3383, signify
24 by saying aye.
25 (Response of "Aye.")
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Those
2 opposed, nay.
3 (No response.)
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
5 Resolution Calendar is adopted.
6 Senator Bruno.
7 SENATOR BRUNO: And, Mr.
8 President, can we at this time take up Senate
9 Resolution 3383, by Senator Golden, have the
10 title read, and move for its immediate
11 adoption.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
13 Secretary will read.
14 THE SECRETARY: By Senator
15 Golden, Legislative Resolution Number 3383,
16 commending Moshe Yedid upon the occasion of
17 his designation for special recognition by
18 Hatzolah of Flatbush.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
20 Golden.
21 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, Mr.
22 President. I would like to talk about a
23 little hero today, a little hero who was
24 about -- how old? About 12, I guess, when
25 this all went down.
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1 Moshe Yedid is one of nine
2 children. He has three older brothers and
3 five sisters, one of whom is his twin sister.
4 Moshe is a sixth-grade student, is well-liked,
5 responsible, and hardworking, and is already
6 recognized as a leader and has plenty of
7 leadership qualities.
8 Two years ago, Moshe's father
9 became seriously ill and Moshe had already
10 spent countless hours studying and playing
11 ball with his father. During his dad's
12 illness, Moshe demonstrated great courage and
13 determination. Concerned for his dad's
14 health, Moshe wanted to help care for his
15 father and did so, bringing his father meals
16 and reading for him and adjusting his machine
17 as he needed it.
18 Soon after, his dad passed away.
19 Moshe decided to show his appreciation to the
20 Hatzolah of Flatbush, a volunteer EMS and
21 ambulance service, for the care and the
22 kindness that Hatzolah had given to his father
23 and to his family because of the numerous
24 visits that they had made, the countless
25 visits by his father for his father's illness.
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1 During the week, in the mourning
2 following his dad's death, Moshe collected
3 several thousand dollars to benefit Hatzolah.
4 He has also recently begun a small business of
5 selling potato chips, in the hope that he
6 might one day purchase an ambulance for
7 Hatzolah in his father's name.
8 Moshe exemplifies this potential of
9 our most precious resource, our youth. And
10 today, as his dad smiles down on him and his
11 family, I am proud to recognize the value of
12 his labor and the promise of his future and
13 the inspiration and model he represents for
14 his family, his peers, and his community.
15 Ladies and gentlemen, help me
16 welcome Moshe and his family and his friends
17 as he sits up there in the gallery and
18 congratulate him for his great valor.
19 Thank you, Moshe.
20 (Standing ovation.)
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
22 Golden.
23 SENATOR GOLDEN: If everybody can
24 sign on to that resolution.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Yes,
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1 we'll take care of that.
2 The question is on the resolution.
3 All those in favor signify by saying aye.
4 (Response of "Aye.")
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Those
6 opposed, nay.
7 (No response.)
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
9 resolution is unanimously adopted.
10 And by request of the sponsor,
11 Senator Golden, we'll add everyone's name, any
12 member not wishing to have their name added to
13 notify the desk.
14 Congratulations, Moshe.
15 Senator Skelos.
16 SENATOR SKELOS: Please recognize
17 Senator Montgomery.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
19 Montgomery.
20 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, Mr.
21 President, thank you. I rise to speak on my
22 resolution, Number 3403, in honor of Sadie
23 Feddoes.
24 And I must begin by saying that
25 some of my best friends are Republicans.
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1 Sadie Feddoes was a Republican. But she was a
2 very good friend, a wonderful woman.
3 She was a Caribbean woman, and she
4 had all of the qualities of someone that you
5 would want to be a mentor and to really give
6 the kind of support and guidance that she
7 always was very, very willing to give. She
8 was truly a sister.
9 So I am very honored to be able to
10 memorialize her in this resolution, along with
11 a number of my colleagues, so that we will
12 never forget that Sadie Feddoes was a good
13 friend.
14 She served as vice president and
15 community and government relations officer for
16 Citibank. She worked there for over 40 years,
17 when she retired. And she was also a
18 columnist for the Amsterdam News for many,
19 many years -- many decades, actually. And her
20 role as a columnist was to really follow the
21 elected officials to see what we were doing
22 and to report about it. And it was always
23 wonderful to be able to pick up the Amsterdam
24 News and read the Sadie Feddoes column.
25 She was also on the board and
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1 served for some time as chair of
2 Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration, I believe
3 which was the first not-for-profit community
4 corporation in the nation. And Sadie Feddoes,
5 in her capacity as board member, was extremely
6 supportive.
7 So we are really fortunate to have
8 had a person like Sadie, who, though she
9 worked in the corporate world, was very, very
10 much a part of the community activities that
11 went on in her own community and for people
12 across the state.
13 So I'm honored to be able to speak
14 and to introduce this resolution. I thank my
15 colleagues for joining me. And I would ask
16 that any of our colleagues who would like to
17 be part of this resolution, I would like to
18 open it up for sponsorship broadly.
19 Thank you.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Thank
21 you, Senator Montgomery.
22 The resolution was previously
23 adopted, and the sponsor has requested it be
24 open for cosponsorship.
25 Senator Libous.
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1 SENATOR LIBOUS: Mr. President,
2 there will be an immediate meeting of the
3 Rules Committee in the Majority Conference
4 Room, and the Senate will stand at ease until
5 the Rules Committee is convened.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER:
7 Immediately meeting of the Rules Committee in
8 the Senate Majority Conference Room. The
9 Senate will stand at ease pending the report
10 of the Rules Committee.
11 (Whereupon, the Senate stood at
12 ease at 4:07 p.m.)
13 (Whereupon, the Senate reconvened
14 at 4:14 p.m.)
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
16 Skelos.
17 SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President,
18 if we could return to reports of standing
19 committees, I believe there's a report of the
20 Rules Committee at the desk. I ask that it be
21 read.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Can we
23 have a little order in the chamber, please.
24 The Secretary will read the report
25 of the Rules Committee.
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1 THE SECRETARY: Senator Bruno,
2 from the Committee on Rules, reports the
3 following bill direct to third reading:
4 Senate Print 6300A, by Senator
5 Volker, an act to amend the Tax Law.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
7 Skelos.
8 SENATOR SKELOS: I move to accept
9 the report of the Rules Committee.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: All
11 those in favor of accepting the report of the
12 Rules Committee signify by saying aye.
13 (Response of "Aye.")
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Those
15 opposed, nay.
16 (No response.)
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
18 report of the Rules Committee is accepted.
19 The bill is reported to third
20 reading.
21 Senator Skelos.
22 SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President,
23 if we could go to the noncontroversial reading
24 of the calendar.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
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1 Secretary will conduct the noncontroversial
2 reading of the calendar.
3 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
4 18, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 6277A, an
5 act to amend the Penal Law and others, in
6 relation to the crime of incest.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
8 last section.
9 THE SECRETARY: Section 31. This
10 act shall take effect on the first of
11 November.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
13 roll.
14 (The Secretary called the roll.)
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
16 Savino, to explain her vote.
17 SENATOR SAVINO: Thank you, Mr.
18 President.
19 I want to rise to explain my vote,
20 and I want to thank Senator Volker for
21 bringing this bill to the floor today.
22 This is an issue that's very
23 important to me. In fact, I had introduced a
24 similar bill on this, and I'm happy that this
25 bill is going to get voted on, that there is
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1 an companion in the Assembly, and that
2 hopefully we'll get this signed by the
3 Governor and passed into law.
4 This bill relates to incest. And
5 incest, the current law back dates back to the
6 16th century. And certainly it is outdated,
7 but it doesn't do anything to address the
8 impact of incest on children and their
9 families.
10 And I want to share with you an
11 experience I had. As many of you know, I
12 began my career as a caseworker in the child
13 welfare administration. And the first case
14 that I had that was handed to me after I
15 received my training was the case of a young
16 woman by the name of Alicia. She was a
17 24-year-old woman who had four children by the
18 time she was 22. She herself had been a
19 product of the foster care system and an
20 incredibly dysfunctional family.
21 But her four children were taken
22 away from her because she was found guilty of
23 failure to protect and endangering the welfare
24 of a child. And what she did wrong was she
25 allowed her brother, who was 22 years old, to
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1 babysit her children. She had a two-year-old
2 girl who he sexually abused routinely, and it
3 came to her attention only when she presented
4 with VD.
5 Her daughter and her two siblings
6 went into foster care for five years. Alicia
7 lost all three of her children, including one
8 to adoption that she never saw again. She was
9 sentenced to five years' probation and,
10 because of many problems that she had, she
11 violated her probation and she actually went
12 to jail and served it out there.
13 Her brother, who was 22, who
14 repeatedly raped her two-year-old daughter,
15 went to jail for 18 months. So a two-year-old
16 girl spent more time in foster care, her
17 mother lost all three of her children and went
18 to jail, and this individual, the perpetrator,
19 spent less time in jail than anybody else.
20 That is an inequity that we can
21 correct with this bill today. And I want to
22 thank Senator Volker for bringing it to the
23 floor.
24 Thank you.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
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1 Savino will be recorded in the affirmative.
2 The Secretary will announce the
3 results.
4 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
6 is passed.
7 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
8 56, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 3117, an
9 act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to the
10 unlawful operation of a recording device.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
12 last section.
13 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
14 act shall take effect on the first of
15 November.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
17 roll.
18 (The Secretary called the roll.)
19 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 57. Nays,
20 1. Senator Duane recorded in the negative.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
22 is passed.
23 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
24 61, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 5622, an
25 act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
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1 arson in the first degree.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
3 last section.
4 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
5 act shall take effect on the 30th day.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
7 roll.
8 (The Secretary called the roll.)
9 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
11 is passed.
12 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
13 67, by Senator Spano, Senate Print 5956, an
14 act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
15 authorizing.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
17 last section.
18 THE SECRETARY: Section 5. This
19 act shall take effect on the first of
20 November.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
22 roll.
23 (The Secretary called the roll.)
24 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
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1 is passed.
2 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
3 68, by Senator Saland, Senate Print 6289, an
4 act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to the
5 crime of endangering the welfare of a child.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
7 last section.
8 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
9 act shall take effect immediately.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
11 roll.
12 (The Secretary called the roll.)
13 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
15 is passed.
16 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
17 74, by Senator Maltese, Senate Print 1156, an
18 act to amend the Labor Law and the Education
19 Law, in relation to prohibiting.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
21 last section.
22 THE SECRETARY: Section 7. This
23 act shall take effect immediately.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
25 roll.
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1 (The Secretary called the roll.)
2 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
4 is passed.
5 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
6 80, by Senator Maltese, Senate Print 5463, an
7 act to amend the Labor Law, in relation to the
8 special task force for the apparel industry.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
10 last section.
11 THE SECRETARY: Section 8. This
12 act shall take effect on the 120th day.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
14 roll.
15 (The Secretary called the roll.)
16 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
18 is passed.
19 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
20 134, by Senator Rath, Senate Print 1513, an
21 act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
22 endangering the welfare of a child.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
24 last section.
25 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
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1 act shall take effect on the first of
2 November.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
4 roll.
5 (The Secretary called the roll.)
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
7 Secretary will announce the results.
8 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 57. Nays,
9 1. Senator Montgomery recorded in the
10 negative.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
12 is passed.
13 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
14 135, by Senator Rath, Senate Print 1521, an
15 act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
16 assaults.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
18 last section.
19 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
20 act shall take effect on the first of
21 November.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
23 roll.
24 (The Secretary called the roll.)
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
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1 Hassell-Thompson, to explain her vote.
2 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank
3 you, Mr. President.
4 When this vote came before us
5 before, I had voted no. And I continue to
6 have some very strong feelings about how we
7 extend sentences and how we strengthen the
8 laws in the State of New York.
9 But in this last two years, as a
10 person who represents the borough president of
11 the Bronx, in conjunction with Assemblywoman
12 Naomi Rivera, on the issues of domestic
13 violence, I have had the opportunity to meet
14 with groups and individuals who talk about the
15 repeated instances of domestic violence
16 against children as well as against women.
17 And so that it becomes incumbent
18 upon me, as someone who is representing that
19 population, to look carefully and sensitively
20 at the way in which we enact laws here in
21 these chambers.
22 My concern continues to be that we
23 spend a lot of our time talking about being
24 punitive and we don't spend an equal amount of
25 time trying to look at changing paradigms to
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1 talk to why people find themselves
2 perpetuating certain crimes that they do.
3 So that I would hope that even as
4 we explore how to imprison and to incarcerate
5 those persons who commit domestic-violence
6 acts against people in our communities, we
7 also begin to look carefully at what is the
8 root cause and begin to put budgetary dollars
9 toward the exploration and treatment.
10 So I will be voting yes on this
11 bill, but I would like us to continue to work
12 on both aspects of this very serious and
13 growing problem that we are finding in our
14 communities.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
16 Hassell-Thompson will be recorded in the
17 affirmative.
18 The Secretary will announce the
19 results.
20 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
22 is passed.
23 THE SECRETARY: Excuse me. In
24 relation to Calendar Number 135: Ayes, 57.
25 Nays, 1. Senator Montgomery recorded in the
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1 negative.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
3 is passed.
4 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
5 137, by Senator Golden, Senate Print 3433, an
6 act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
7 endangering the welfare of a child.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
9 last section.
10 THE SECRETARY: Section 6. This
11 act shall take effect on the first of
12 November.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Call the
14 roll.
15 (The Secretary called the roll.)
16 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 57. Nays,
17 1. Senator Montgomery recorded in the
18 negative.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The bill
20 is passed.
21 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
22 147, by Senator Meier, Senate Print --
23 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Lay it
24 aside.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Lay the
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1 bill aside.
2 THE SECRETARY: In relation to
3 Calendar Number 230, Senator Volker moves to
4 discharge, from the Committee on
5 Investigations and Government Operations,
6 Assembly Bill Number 9461A and substitute it
7 for the identical Senate Bill Number 6300A,
8 Third Reading Calendar 230.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER:
10 Substitution ordered.
11 The Secretary will read.
12 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
13 230, by Member of the Assembly Tokasz,
14 Assembly Print Number 9461A, an act to amend
15 the Tax Law.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
17 last section.
18 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
19 act shall take effect immediately.
20 SENATOR VOLKER: To explain my
21 vote, please.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
23 the roll.
24 (The Secretary called the roll.)
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
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1 Senator Volker, to explain his vote.
2 SENATOR VOLKER: Two things.
3 One, for the benefit of my colleagues, you
4 probably aren't aware, the last three mayors
5 of the City of Buffalo have been senators and
6 have come from the Senate minority. I just
7 want you all to know that.
8 For some years there's been a
9 debate in Erie County over sharing of this
10 sales tax. This is a sales tax, a temporary
11 tax that was done in 1985 as a result of a
12 fiscal crisis in 1985. There's been an
13 agreement this year to share with the city and
14 with the towns and villages the amount of
15 $6 million each; that is, 6 million for the
16 city and 6 million for the towns and villages.
17 I mention that because we have been
18 working with the control boards, both the city
19 and the county. We intend, by the way, to
20 make sure that the county is made whole and
21 that there is no interruption in county funds.
22 The sharing does not start until
23 January 1st of 2007. In fact, one thing
24 that's really good about this bill is that I
25 don't have to have the sales tax as my first
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1 chapter next year, because this is going to go
2 on for two years.
3 Obviously, we are always
4 uncomfortable about doing this. But without
5 this, the real property taxes in Erie County
6 would probably go up somewhere in the area of
7 30 to 50 percent. It's very possible.
8 In any case, this is something I
9 think that needs to be done. We'd rather not
10 do it. But frankly, due to the fiscal
11 situation in Erie County, which has
12 deteriorated badly in the last four years --
13 by the way, I want to mention to everybody the
14 lowest taxes, real property taxes in the State
15 of New York in a suburban area are in Western
16 New York. It's not well known, but it's true.
17 That's real property taxes. However,
18 unfortunately, we have a high sales tax.
19 At any rate, I vote aye.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
21 Senator Rath, to explain her vote.
22 SENATOR RATH: Thanks,
23 Mr. Chairman. This is -- I guess I would call
24 this a rather nostalgic vote. I was the
25 minority leader in the county legislature when
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1 we put this tax in, and it was always to be a
2 temporary tax. The 1 percent sales tax was to
3 come off.
4 Well, as has happened in many
5 places throughout not only New York State but
6 the United States, I would guess, costs have
7 gone up. The tax never came off.
8 And at that time we were always
9 going to share it. And you'll be interested
10 to know that Erie County shares more
11 dramatically than any other county in the
12 state. We not only share with the cities, the
13 towns, the villages, but also with the Buffalo
14 School District.
15 So we share generously with all of
16 these other jurisdictions. So that means
17 there's less there for the county. And as
18 Senator Volker has said, the county has gone
19 through some difficult, difficult times, as
20 I'm sure you've been noticing.
21 But I rose today because there is a
22 question that I think needs to be addressed on
23 a broad scale. I think it's easy enough for
24 us to figure out who does what when we're
25 talking about providing services. Who pays
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1 for what is maybe a little more complex,
2 because sometimes it's a mixture of state
3 money and county money and federal money. But
4 the big question is who takes credit for what.
5 And that question burns in the minds of
6 everyone who talks about reducing taxes and
7 providing quality services.
8 What's happening here today is that
9 some of the dollars that were used to provide
10 services by Erie County will be going to the
11 towns and the cities and the villages. Will
12 they be providing the services that the county
13 used to provide and can't provide now because
14 they don't have the money? I don't know.
15 It's kind of like a balloon: You
16 squeeze it at one end and it pops out the
17 other end. You let go here, and it pops back
18 the other way. And so someone is going to be
19 picking up the cost of those services, or
20 someone is going to be reducing services.
21 But the bigger question beyond
22 that -- and this is why I have risen today, as
23 I said, to explain my vote and to vote in
24 favor of this -- is because now the money will
25 be going a different entity: towns, cities,
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1 and villages. I will be writing to my cities,
2 towns and villages, asking them to reduce
3 taxes in their jurisdiction.
4 It is my hope that Erie County will
5 find ways to reduce their taxes and be
6 accountable. But now these other
7 municipalities will have more taxes than they
8 had before. They will have a windfall. And
9 you know what? Maybe they'll be more
10 accountable than Erie County has been. I hope
11 so. Or maybe the taxpayers would just rather
12 not have the services, maybe they'd rather
13 have the money back and not have so much come
14 out of their pockets.
15 But we're going to have a better
16 chance of finding out now this way. Eighteen,
17 twenty years -- what was it, Dale, 1985?
18 SENATOR VOLKER: 1985.
19 SENATOR RATH: Okay, over 20
20 years. Over 20 years we've been waiting for
21 this chance to see this happen. It's going to
22 happen.
23 And we will let you know what
24 happens when the jury comes back after a
25 couple of years. We'll see if everyone in
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1 Erie County has gotten a rebate from the fact
2 that we have shared sales tax with the towns,
3 villages and cities.
4 Thank you.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
6 Senator Malcolm Smith, to explain his vote.
7 SENATOR MALCOLM SMITH: Thank you
8 very much, Mr. President.
9 I just rise briefly to thank
10 Senator Volker, in particular because, as you
11 know, a good colleague of ours who has
12 distinguished himself in this body by the name
13 of Senator Byron Brown is now the mayor of
14 Buffalo. And as we all know, Buffalo is under
15 the jurisdiction of the financial control
16 board.
17 And this particular bill will go a
18 long way in helping Senator Byron Brown to the
19 tune of $6 million. So I vote aye.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
21 you, Senator.
22 Senator Statis -- Stachowski, on
23 the bill.
24 SENATOR STACHOWSKI: Thank you,
25 Mr. President. That's easy for you to say.
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1 But I also rise to explain my vote.
2 Senator Volker always has to have this as his
3 first chapter of the year, the Erie County
4 sales tax. And at least next year it won't
5 be, because this is the first time we're doing
6 it for two years.
7 And although the media has reported
8 that we're causing an instant hole in the
9 county's budget, they get the whole, according
10 to the memo, roughly $121 million again this
11 year, which they've been getting for twenty
12 years, and at a growing pace. I think it
13 started around $80 million, maybe 85.
14 And the fact is that the shared
15 part of this sales tax is only going to be
16 about 12.5 million, if the agreement serves my
17 memory correctly. So that it's not really
18 being shared at the same proportion that the
19 standard formula is. I don't believe the
20 school districts are getting any of it.
21 And so that the towns and the
22 city -- and the city, which has the hard
23 control board, as opposed to county's soft
24 control board, can use the money very much and
25 so can the other small cities in the area.
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1 So hopefully they'll do the right
2 thing with the money, the county will find a
3 way to survive without the small amount out of
4 an ever-growing sales tax bonus that they get
5 by this extra sales tax and the previous extra
6 percent we passed a few weeks ago that
7 everybody seems to have forgotten -- back in
8 Western New York, not necessarily in this
9 chamber.
10 So hopefully this will serve as a
11 step forward. Maybe, as Senator Rath said, it
12 will serve as the start of people being more
13 careful about what they do with their finances
14 and try to streamline their governments and
15 make things more affordable for the people
16 that live there.
17 I vote aye.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
19 you, Senator.
20 Announce the results.
21 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
23 bill is passed.
24 Senator Skelos, that completes the
25 reading of the noncontroversial calendar.
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1 SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you, Mr.
2 President.
3 If we could go to the controversial
4 calendar. I think first we'll ring the bells
5 and let everybody know.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
7 Secretary will ring the bells.
8 The Secretary will read.
9 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
10 147, by Senator Meier, Senate Print 6481A, an
11 act to amend the Penal Law and others, in
12 relation to establishing the offense of
13 aggravated murder of a child and making
14 technical corrections thereto.
15 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN:
16 Explanation.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
18 Senator Meier, an explanation has been
19 requested.
20 SENATOR MEIER: Thank you, Mr.
21 President.
22 This bill establishes a new Class
23 A-I felony of aggravated murder of a child.
24 And it provides for a mandated life sentence
25 without parole upon conviction for that crime.
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1 The crime of aggravated murder of a
2 child occurs when the perpetrator is 18 years
3 of age and they are the parent, the guardian,
4 or other person legally responsible for the
5 care of that child, no matter how brief the
6 charge of that care may be, and they cause the
7 death of a child less than 14 years old.
8 And the standard is with depraved
9 indifference they recklessly engage in conduct
10 which creates a grave risk of serious injury
11 or death to the child and thereby causes the
12 death, or where it's done as a case of
13 intentional homicide.
14 Under current law, someone who uses
15 torture, who uses the most excruciating means
16 to murder a small child can wind up being
17 sentenced to as little as 15 years to life,
18 and that would mean the possibility of parole
19 within as little as 15 years. This corrects
20 what we believe is not just an outrage but an
21 obvious oversight in the law.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
23 you, Senator.
24 Senator Sampson.
25 SENATOR SAMPSON: Thank you, Mr.
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1 President. Would the sponsor yield for a
2 couple of questions.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
4 Senator Sampson has requested you to yield,
5 Senator.
6 SENATOR MEIER: Gladly, Mr.
7 President.
8 SENATOR SAMPSON: Through you,
9 Mr. President. When you talk about legally
10 responsible, would that include a common-law
11 wife or a common-law husband under the terms
12 of being legally responsible?
13 SENATOR MEIER: Well, there's --
14 common-law marriage was abolished in New York
15 in the 1930s, as a matter of statute.
16 But what it does include is anyone
17 charged with the care of that child for a
18 period, no matter how brief. So it would
19 include a parent, it would include a guardian,
20 it might include a babysitter, a live-in
21 boyfriend or girlfriend, someone visiting --
22 so long as for any period, however brief, the
23 care of that child is entrusted to them.
24 SENATOR SAMPSON: Through you,
25 Mr. President, if the sponsor would continue
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1 to yield.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
3 Senator Meier, do you continue to yield?
4 SENATOR MEIER: Yes, Mr.
5 President.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
7 Senator yields.
8 SENATOR SAMPSON: Through you,
9 Mr. President, when you say a brief period of
10 time, are we talking about 24 hours, are we
11 talking about a couple of days? When you have
12 a live-in boyfriend who may be a transient who
13 comes in and out of the home, at what point in
14 time does he become legally responsible for
15 the care of children that may not be his?
16 SENATOR MEIER: Well, Mr.
17 President, let me tell you the intent of this
18 bill.
19 When that person has enough time
20 with that child, as the live-in boyfriend -- I
21 guess he was the occasional live-in
22 boyfriend -- had with Quachaun Browne, he had
23 enough time to brutally murder that little
24 boy, that's enough time, Senator. That
25 triggers this, life without parole.
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1 SENATOR SAMPSON: Mr. President,
2 would the sponsor continue to yield.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
4 Senator Meier, do you continue to yield?
5 SENATOR MEIER: Certainly, Mr.
6 President.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
8 Senator yields.
9 SENATOR SAMPSON: But when you're
10 looking at the statute and you talk about
11 legally responsible and the period of time, we
12 need to understand whether or not does that
13 individual fit within the legal framework of
14 this piece of legislation.
15 SENATOR MEIER: Well, Mr.
16 President, with all due respect to the
17 distinguished Senator, there's ample case law
18 on this. We have experience in the homicide
19 statutes with regard to a person left in a
20 position of responsibility to watch a child.
21 We have experience with other
22 homicide statutes in terms of just these kinds
23 of situations -- a babysitter, a boyfriend, a
24 neighbor that someone says "Watch my daughter
25 while I go to the store." It is in fact a
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1 jury question. It's an element that the
2 prosecutor must prove. But we do have case
3 law experience that it doesn't require all
4 that much time.
5 But, you know, we're really asking
6 how many angels can dance on the head of a pin
7 here. When we look at what happens in these
8 cases, and if you talk about trying to protect
9 children, we know what happens. We know who
10 Nixzmary Brown's murderer was. We know it was
11 her stepfather and someone who routinely lived
12 in that residence. That should not be a big
13 problem of proof.
14 We know who Quachaun -- we know who
15 the person, the defendant in the Quachaun
16 Browne case will be. That was a live-in
17 boyfriend, a member of that household. That
18 should not be a difficult matter of proof.
19 And, Mr. President, I understand
20 perhaps what the Senator's concern may be from
21 a legal point of view, but I don't think it
22 diminishes the necessity of passing this law
23 that in some instances prosecutors may have a
24 difficult time proving some elements. That
25 may be true in some cases, but I suspect not
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1 so in the majority of cases.
2 In fact, Mr. President, if you want
3 to talk about difficulty in proving a case, I
4 spoke over the telephone to the district
5 attorney who's going to be responsible for
6 this case. And if he wanted to get a
7 conviction for an A-I felony on this case and
8 to prove that the child was murdered after
9 first having been tortured, in order to get an
10 A-I felony conviction showing that torture was
11 the means, if you will, that led up to the
12 child's death, he has to show that the
13 torturer derived gratification or pleasure and
14 prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.
15 That's a difficult item of proof,
16 to get into the rather byzantine, bizarre and
17 sick mind of somebody who would take pleasure
18 from torturing a child.
19 So this is designed to protect
20 children. It's designed to give prosecutors
21 an additional tool to do that. And the fact
22 that in some hypothetical case there may be a
23 problem of proof on an element is hardly a
24 reason to question the bill.
25 SENATOR SAMPSON: Through you,
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1 Mr. President, if the sponsor would continue
2 to yield.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
4 Senator Meier, do you continue to yield?
5 SENATOR MEIER: Yes.
6 SENATOR SAMPSON: I'm not
7 questioning the importance of this bill. The
8 only thing I'm pointing out is there could be
9 a problem when you have a defense attorney on
10 the other side that when you talk about being
11 legally responsible and you're dealing with
12 the issue of in some of these households you
13 have single parents and you have a common-law
14 wife or a common-law husband who may be a
15 transient, who may be a guest at the time.
16 We're trying to create a statute
17 that punishes these individuals to give them
18 life in prison. But if you leave that door
19 open, you won't get the punishment that you're
20 seeking with respect to this legislation.
21 SENATOR MEIER: Mr. President,
22 the bill clearly says --
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
24 Senator Meier, do you continue to yield?
25 SENATOR MEIER: Yes.
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1 The bill speaks in terms of a
2 person in a position of trust. The bill
3 clearly says, if you turn to page 3, beginning
4 with line 30, person in a position of trust
5 means any person who is charged with any duty
6 or responsibility for the health, education,
7 welfare, supervision, or care of another
8 person, either independently or through
9 another person. Through another person. In
10 other words, the mother, the father, whomever
11 asks someone else, no matter how brief.
12 Now, I think that's pretty clear.
13 Now, can we sit around and hypothetically
14 think of areas where a prosecutor might have a
15 little bit of a problem establishing that?
16 Yeah, he might. And is it inevitable that
17 some defense lawyer is going to take a line of
18 attack through that? You bet. That's what
19 defense lawyers do.
20 But I think we've got it covered to
21 the greatest extent possible, based on the
22 case law that we have, based on our prior
23 experience with these kind of statutes.
24 SENATOR SAMPSON: Thank you, Mr.
25 President.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
2 you, Senators.
3 Senator Diaz.
4 SENATOR DIAZ: I yield.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
6 Senator Montgomery.
7 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Thank you,
8 Mr. President. Thank you, Senator Diaz, for
9 yielding.
10 Mr. President, I would like to
11 speak on the legislation.
12 I understand, I see now that
13 Senator Meier has given a name to this
14 legislation. This is the Nixzmary Brown Act,
15 is that what this is? I believe. Nixzmary's
16 Law.
17 Mr. President, Nixzmary Brown and
18 her family lived in my district, and they
19 actually lived right across the street in
20 front of a precinct. And this clearly is one
21 of the great tragedies in my district for a
22 child, but it is certainly not the first one.
23 And I think that one of the
24 problems that we have to Senator Meier's
25 legislation, and to all of us who are trying
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1 desperately to figure out how do we prevent
2 this happening, that family violence is very
3 troubling and very, very complex and difficult
4 to deal with.
5 And so it's not just the Nixzmarys,
6 but it's all of the people who witness it.
7 Usually in cases where children are abused,
8 women are abused in the same household. And
9 so -- and it's difficult even to have those
10 people who are abused actually decide that
11 they must leave in order to save their own
12 lives.
13 So it's very, very complex. I
14 don't have the answers, and I'm sure that most
15 of us don't.
16 But what we have done here in
17 Senator Meier's bill and the other legislation
18 today, in the name of looking to figure out to
19 help children, we have just created sentencing
20 laws, because that's easy. And we have longer
21 sentences, sentences of life without parole
22 for parents --
23 SENATOR MEIER: Mr. President,
24 will Senator Montgomery yield for a question?
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
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1 Senator Montgomery, do you yield for a
2 question from Senator Meier?
3 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: I would like
4 to finish, and I would be happy to answer any
5 questions.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
7 Senator does not yield at this moment.
8 SENATOR MEIER: I thank the
9 Senator. Thank you.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
11 Senator does not yield at this moment.
12 Continue, Senator.
13 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: We're
14 creating a sentence of life without parole for
15 parents. And certainly parents should be
16 punished if they kill their children or maim
17 them or harm them or abuse them. And we
18 certainly do have and Senator Meier certainly
19 has introduced legislation to address that.
20 But I think this now has gone
21 further than just looking for ways to punish
22 the parents. There are so many nuances, so
23 many different aspects to this issue. So a
24 quick fix is not what we really need. It may
25 satisfy us for our political purposes, but it
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1 does not address the issue.
2 Now, I am proposing -- and I hope
3 that we can have a discussion about this --
4 that we look at creating, especially in
5 New York City but hopefully statewide,
6 something akin to what has been done in other
7 cities, namely Philadelphia, where I have
8 visited and talked to people who have done
9 this because they had similar problems and
10 looked for solutions.
11 I'm proposing that there be an
12 emergency response team made up of people not
13 where we just send a social worker into a
14 situation that is possibly dangerous for that
15 person, but where we have a team that is
16 comprised of the ACS plus all of the other
17 agencies, human services agencies, as well as
18 law enforcement.
19 Because this was a violent home.
20 Social workers were obviously afraid to go
21 into it. And once the child was reported and
22 there was some contact with that family, the
23 situation only got worse.
24 This was a father who was
25 unemployed from his security job. What a
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1 horrible situation. You have five or six
2 children, you live in a one- or two-bedroom
3 apartment, and you have lost your security
4 job. And it goes on and on, the horrors of
5 this story.
6 So we need to have a mechanism
7 where we can address these issues before a
8 child dies. Hopefully, before a woman dies.
9 Because in many situations, if it's not one of
10 the children, it is the woman.
11 Let's step back and think through
12 what makes some sense. Let's work together.
13 Because this is not Nixzmary's Law. This is
14 not -- this doesn't address what happened to
15 Nixzmary, because this doesn't address her
16 family. No one is talking about what happened
17 to her mother before. She was 27 years old,
18 Mr. President, and she had five or six
19 children, and her oldest child is 7 years old.
20 This doesn't talk about Nixzmary.
21 This just talks about our need to rush and say
22 if you do something, let's give you a longer
23 sentence, ignore the possibility of judges
24 having anything to say about it, let's just go
25 life without parole and that will solve the
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1 problem. This doesn't speak to Nixzmary. I
2 object to this bill being named Nixzmary's
3 Law. It's really not.
4 So, Mr. President, I'm going to
5 vote against this. That child lived in my
6 district, and I have pain about that. And I
7 would like to see something done to help
8 families who are caught up in a situation like
9 Nixzmary's family so we don't lose another
10 child and we don't lose another woman like
11 I've lost women in my district to domestic
12 violence.
13 So it's not Nixzmary's Law, it's
14 not the right thing to do, and I am voting no
15 on this bill.
16 Thank you.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
18 you, Senator.
19 Senator Meier.
20 SENATOR MEIER: Will Senator
21 Montgomery yield for a question?
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
23 Senator Montgomery, will you yield to Senator
24 Meier?
25 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, I will.
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1 SENATOR MEIER: Mr. President, I
2 wonder if the Senator could tell us what she
3 thinks an appropriate penalty would be if --
4 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Well --
5 SENATOR MEIER: Well, let me
6 finish the question, Senator.
7 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, go
8 ahead.
9 SENATOR MEIER: -- what an
10 appropriate penalty would be in a case where
11 the following facts were proven: where a
12 26-year-old, fully grown man brutally beats
13 and tortures a 7-year-old child to death.
14 What's the appropriate penalty, Senator?
15 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Mr.
16 President, I'm looking at this -- I don't have
17 the law book in front of me, but this says
18 that a parent or a guardian who is convicted
19 of murdering his or her child less than
20 14 years of age can be -- and who
21 intentionally murders his or her child is
22 subject to a parole-eligible sentence of
23 between 15 to 25 years and a maximum of life.
24 We now have in law a bill, a law
25 which allows us to -- in the event the judge
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1 makes a determination that that is correct
2 thing to do, we can sentence them to life. So
3 it's not that we don't have a law that would
4 allow us to do it, we just don't have a system
5 which protects families and children in this
6 situation from being killed, hopefully.
7 That's what I'm looking for,
8 Senator Meier. I'm not looking for
9 necessarily another sentencing bill, because
10 we have that. You said it. It's in your memo
11 right here. You say we have -- we can do
12 that, we can punish them, sentence them to
13 life. It's up to the judge to make the
14 decision.
15 That's what I would like to see us
16 use. But I would also like for us to focus on
17 how do we keep those children from being
18 killed in the first place.
19 SENATOR MEIER: Would the Senator
20 yield for another question?
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
22 Senator Montgomery, do you yield?
23 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, I do.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
25 Senator yields.
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1 SENATOR MEIER: Mr. President, I
2 would ask the Senator if she understands that
3 when we talk about 15 years to life, that's
4 what is called an indeterminate sentence. And
5 at the end of 15 years, the New York State
6 Board of Parole can parole someone under such
7 a sentence.
8 So I would ask the Senator if she
9 would feel that under the hypothetical that I
10 posed to her, a 26-year-old, fully grown man
11 tortures and beats a 7-year-old little girl to
12 death -- while, by the way, she begs for
13 mercy, begs for help, and he beats and
14 tortures her to death -- do you think it's
15 appropriate that that man can be out on the
16 street at age 41 years with a full, long life
17 ahead of him? Is that appropriate?
18 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Mr.
19 President, I want to be very clear. It is not
20 appropriate for any parent to kill their
21 child. It is not appropriate for any person
22 to kill another person. We have laws that
23 deal with that. And we have punishment that
24 deals with it.
25 And all I'm saying to you, Senator
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1 Meier, is that -- in answer, Mr. President,
2 through you, in answer to his inquiry -- I
3 think it's a rhetorical question that he asks,
4 absolutely, because we have checks all along
5 the way. We have the sentencing judge, we
6 have the parole system. And so there are
7 checks along the way if indeed it is necessary
8 that a person spends their life in prison. We
9 have a number of people who are spending their
10 lives in prison.
11 That, I think, our system takes
12 care of. What our system has not been able to
13 do successfully is to have a mechanism whereby
14 we can identify, early enough to intervene,
15 symptoms and signals where things have gone
16 wrong for a child. A child who comes to
17 school obviously having been abused by
18 someone, someplace. Who do we report to? Who
19 reports them? Who goes to check on the
20 report? That's where we have not been able to
21 establish a working, workable system.
22 So what I'm talking about is not
23 looking for another way -- another extension
24 of the penalty. I'm looking for a way to
25 hopefully prevent another child or another
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1 woman from being killed and to be able to pick
2 up the signals early, to be able to intervene
3 appropriately early, and to avoid this kind of
4 horrible death.
5 Let's use Nixzmary for a positive,
6 positive response from our Legislature and our
7 government officials for once and not to just
8 run and look for another criminal justice
9 bill. So this is not Nixzmary's Law. We
10 should retract that. It's Senator Meier's
11 extension of the Criminal Justice Act to
12 provide life without parole for parents.
13 Thank you.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
15 you, Senator.
16 Senator Little.
17 SENATOR LITTLE: Thank you, Mr.
18 President.
19 I'd like to take this opportunity
20 to speak on this bill because I think what
21 we're doing today is very important and
22 certainly very appropriate.
23 There is no greater gift, I don't
24 believe, than the gift of a child in your
25 life, be it a biological child, an adopted
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1 child, or a child in your custody. And as the
2 mother of six children, I just fail to
3 comprehend how any parent, mother or father,
4 could stand by and watch a helpless child --
5 and really, all children under the age of 14
6 are vulnerable and helpless. They can't
7 really defender themselves. They are subject
8 to our control, the control of their parent.
9 But to sit by and watch and to
10 allow what happened to this child is
11 absolutely unbelievable to me. It is inhuman
12 that you could allow that to happen. Children
13 are a precious gift.
14 Recently, in my district, we just
15 had another sad incident. A young mother, 34,
16 had seven children, none in her custody except
17 this eighth child. The eighth child she slept
18 with, at seven months old, while she was
19 allegedly intoxicated and using pharmaceutical
20 drugs, prescription drugs. The 7-month-old
21 child suffocated.
22 These things should not, cannot
23 happen. And when they do happen, they need an
24 appropriate penalty. This child never had her
25 eighth birthday. And yet the man who caused
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1 her death will celebrate and could celebrate
2 his 41st, 42nd, 45th and 50th birthday as a
3 free person.
4 We need this penalty. We need to
5 say life without parole. We have it for the
6 killing of a child in the course of a sexual
7 act or committing rape. The killing of a
8 child is the killing of a child, a helpless
9 child. We need to have this penalty. And I
10 hope that all of my colleagues will support
11 this bill today.
12 Thank you.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
14 Senator Diaz.
15 SENATOR DIAZ: Thank you, Mr.
16 President. I rise to speak on the bill.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
18 Senator Diaz, on the bill.
19 SENATOR DIAZ: Last year, three
20 days before Christmas, the Governor called an
21 extraordinary session of the Legislature.
22 That was on Wednesday, December 21, 2005. The
23 purpose of that extraordinary session was in
24 response to pressure mounted by the New York
25 Post and the New York Daily News in regard to
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1 the assassination of two police officers,
2 Officer Daniel Enchautegui and Officer Dillon
3 Stewart.
4 On that day, Wednesday,
5 December 21, 2005, I spoke and voted against
6 the police killer bill. Let me now read my
7 statement from that day. That day,
8 December 21, 2005, I started by saying: "Let
9 me express my condolences to the families of
10 Police Officer Dillon Stewart and Police
11 Officer Daniel Enchautegui and to all of those
12 families who have lost a loved one in the line
13 of duty. As the father of a New York City
14 police sergeant, I could sympathize with their
15 pain, knowing that at any time my family could
16 be next."
17 "I want to make it clear," I said
18 that day, "that I fully support those brave
19 men and women of the New York City Police
20 Department who risk their life in their daily
21 work. However, saying that," I said, "I would
22 like to share with you some of my concern
23 about this legislation" that day.
24 "According to the statistics
25 reported in the New York Post on Monday,
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1 December 19, 2005, in New York City there have
2 been 509 killings, homicides. 62 percent were
3 committed with guns, 59 percent of the victims
4 were black, 27 percent of the victims were
5 Hispanic, and 8 percent of the victims were
6 white."
7 I said that these statistics showed
8 that out of 509 homicides or killings in
9 New York City in 2005, 86 percent of the
10 victims were black and Hispanic. These, I
11 said, I suppose include grocery store owners
12 and workers or what we call bodegueros.
13 These, I said, I suppose include taxi drivers,
14 especially livery car drivers. These, I
15 suppose, include senior citizens and every
16 other citizen in the black and the Hispanic
17 community.
18 After reading these statistics, I
19 said, I have to ask myself the following
20 question. And I asked this question that day:
21 If the black and Hispanic bodegueros or the
22 black and Hispanic bodegueros, taxi drivers,
23 and all senior citizens are the ones getting
24 killed the most, why support legislation that
25 applies only for those that kill members of
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1 the police department and not bodegueros and
2 taxi drivers?
3 I said, "My daughter, my only
4 daughter, is a member of the New York City
5 Police Department. She's a sergeant. And as
6 I said before, at any time my family could be
7 subject to the same suffering as the
8 Enchautegui family and many other police
9 officers' families."
10 Nonetheless, I said -- listen
11 carefully -- nonetheless, I said, I have to
12 ask myself if the life of a police officer is
13 worth more than the life of a bodeguero, a
14 taxi driver, a senior citizen or any other
15 New Yorker.
16 I said: "Are we sending a message
17 to criminals out there telling them that if
18 they want to kill someone that they are better
19 off a choosing a bodeguero, a taxi driver, a
20 senior citizen, or any other because they will
21 get a lesser sentence that way?"
22 "I am in support of legislation," I
23 said, "that increases penalties on anyone that
24 kills or that takes the life of a police
25 officer or anyone else. I believe that if we
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1 are going to send a message to criminals and
2 if we want to stop crime in New York once and
3 for all, we have to toughen penalties for the
4 killing of anyone."
5 Finally, I asked, what is our
6 message today to New Yorkers? Is it that a
7 police officer's life is worth more than other
8 lives?
9 Ladies and gentlemen, on that
10 occasion, Wednesday, December 21, 2005, I
11 advised all of you that every human life has
12 equal value: Black, Hispanic, white, Asian,
13 Indian, police officers, children, taxi
14 drivers, bodegueros or a grocery store worker,
15 senior citizens everywhere. They are all
16 precious lives, and they all have the same
17 value. One is not better than the other.
18 Today, just a few weeks after that
19 day, December 21, 2005, we are facing a
20 situation that I foresaw back then and that
21 only Senator Kevin Parker understood and
22 followed and joined me. Today we are trying
23 to increase penalties for children killers.
24 The brutal murder of Nixzmary Brown
25 by her guardian and the abuse and killings of
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1 many other children cannot be and should not
2 be forgiven. We have to act now. But we
3 could have done it last year. On Wednesday,
4 December 21, 2005, three days before
5 Christmas, we could have done that.
6 Today, one more time, under the
7 pressure of the media, we are dealing with the
8 same problem, increasing penalties for those
9 that kill a child. Last time it was to
10 increase penalties for those that kill a
11 police officer. Contrary to the last bill, I
12 am voting in favor of this bill.
13 However, one more time I am telling
14 all of you that we should not wait until
15 tomorrow, when they kill a few senior citizens
16 or a few taxi drivers or a few bodegueros.
17 And we should not wait until the New York Post
18 and the Daily News start pressuring us to
19 increase penalties on senior citizen killings,
20 and on bodegueros, to act.
21 All life are equal. All life are
22 precious in God's eyes. We are all children
23 of God. And going back to what Senator
24 Montgomery said, and somebody asks: What
25 should we do? Why don't we pay attention
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1 before that? Well, ladies and gentlemen, let
2 me tell you something. Children have been
3 killed in the City of New York, children have
4 been abused, and I see our Mayor next to the
5 commissioner of ACS, Administration for
6 Children's Services, saying that his support
7 for the commissioner has grown.
8 So when is it that we will
9 understand that it's under Commissioner John
10 Mattingly's supervision that those killings
11 and those children have been killed and have
12 been abused? When are we going to ask -- when
13 is the Mayor going to ask him to resign? When
14 are we going to put somebody there that
15 really, really looks into the problem before?
16 Because we have ample information
17 that Nixzmary's killing could have been
18 avoided if the Department of ACS, the
19 Commissioner and the administration of the
20 City of New York, could have done better.
21 The Mayor said we all have failed,
22 the administration has failed, the city has
23 failed. We all have. No, ladies and
24 gentlemen, Mr. Mayor, Commissioner, we have
25 not failed -- you failed. Your administration
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1 failed. And it's about time that the Mayor
2 remove the commissioner so we protect our
3 children better.
4 Thank you. I'm voting yes on this
5 bill.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
7 you, Senator.
8 Senator Maltese.
9 SENATOR MALTESE: Mr. President,
10 on behalf of my constituents in Queens County,
11 I wish to express our sincere appreciation to
12 the sponsor of the bill, Ray Meier, and all
13 the other sponsors of the bill, as well as
14 express appreciation to Assemblywoman Nettie
15 Mayersohn, who has been fighting this fight to
16 protect children and to penalize their
17 murderers for many years.
18 She advised me just earlier today
19 that on a comparable bill in her house she has
20 already received assurances from over 100
21 Assembly members that they will cosponsor this
22 bill.
23 Mr. President, Senator Meier has
24 indicated that he spoke to Charles J. Hynes,
25 Joe Hynes, the district attorney of Kings
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1 County, and he has worked with Senator Meier
2 and others on formulating this bill, which
3 admittedly, to my good colleague Senator
4 Montgomery, is a punishment bill.
5 At the same time, we have
6 approached this bill, we in the Senate have
7 approached this question, this issue, in a
8 variety of ways. And tomorrow my
9 understanding is that we will pass legislation
10 that will require caseworkers to receive
11 annual training that will provide educational
12 resources for adoptive and foster parents,
13 that will give caseworkers access to criminal
14 records of those they investigate.
15 And we in the Senate Majority have
16 had repeated meetings with the New York State
17 Child Protective Services, with others in a
18 position of responsibility for protecting the
19 most vulnerable in our society, the children.
20 And we will be holding task-force meetings,
21 hearings, just as has been held and will be
22 held in the Assembly, to address a problem.
23 Almost forty years ago I served as
24 a Queens prosecutor and deputy chief of the
25 homicide bureau and had the responsibility of
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1 investigating some of these same heinous
2 murders -- children killed, raped and
3 murdered, in one case, a 9-year-old girl, by
4 her own father. Similar situations, similar
5 cases where the adequate punishment was not
6 there to at least punish the transgressor, the
7 perpetrator of these horrific crimes.
8 Here we are almost forty years
9 later, and the same crimes are again
10 occurring. And we in the Legislature, because
11 of this little girl, because of this
12 7-year-old girl, Nixzmary Brown, are trying to
13 prevent a horrendous act like that from
14 occurring again.
15 At the same time, we must serve
16 notice that a person in trust with the custody
17 of these most vulnerable of our young, those
18 that entrust their safety, their very lives to
19 the parents, to those that are acting as
20 stepparents or with custody of these children,
21 who have nowhere else to turn, that at least
22 if those children are horribly murdered,
23 tortured, abused, and murdered, that we will
24 exact a penalty of life without parole.
25 Admittedly, this bill doesn't
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1 answer all the concerns and the questions of
2 Senator Montgomery and many others. At the
3 same time, a crime like this speaks out, cries
4 out for some type of punishment that fits the
5 crime. And this punishment does not fit this
6 crime.
7 I know this bill has been labeled
8 and Assemblywoman Mayersohn also is reluctant
9 to label it Nixzmary's Law. But some of us
10 felt that this little 7-year-old girl that had
11 too short a life should be remembered. As I
12 think back over the almost forty years of the
13 hundreds and probably thousands of vulnerable
14 children that have been killed by those that
15 they should be seeking and receiving
16 protection from, this little girl -- and I
17 know that it has received press coverage, and
18 I know that it has aroused anger and outrage
19 on the part of a population beyond New York
20 City, beyond the State of New York, a
21 7-year-old child that was tortured and abused
22 over a lengthy period of time, and so many
23 warnings signals that were ignored.
24 I would hate, I would not wish to
25 be in the place of those ACS workers that
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1 perhaps asked themselves should they have
2 pressed a little harder, should they have
3 received somebody in law enforcement to go
4 with them, should they have pressed for entry
5 into the household, should they have secured
6 assistance from a supervisor. As the
7 supervisors, should they have gotten others to
8 step in and look over the case.
9 Here we had doctors that I believe
10 should have done more to ascertain the causing
11 of bruises and injuries that were patently
12 unexplained.
13 This case cries out for the
14 ultimate punishment. This case -- we cannot
15 take steps to make sure that this never
16 happens again. At the same time, the torture
17 that this child received, the abuse that this
18 child received, tied to a chair by a person
19 who calls himself a man, tied to a chair with
20 the apparent acquiescence of the mother that
21 the child cried out to -- "Mama, Mama,
22 Mama" -- and received no assistance.
23 The neighbors that now say, Maybe I
24 should have heard, maybe I should have stepped
25 in, the relatives that are now bemoaning the
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1 fact that they could have done something,
2 should have done something -- those people
3 will carry that burden for the rest of their
4 lives.
5 We here in the Senate have a
6 responsibility to enact statutes. We try to
7 protect the most vulnerable. In this case, we
8 also must act on our obligation to punish the
9 guilty. Life without parole is too easy for
10 the perpetrators of this heinous crime but is
11 what we can accomplish now and what we should
12 pass and enact into law.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
14 you, Senator.
15 Senator Savino.
16 SENATOR SAVINO: Thank you, Mr.
17 President.
18 I rise in support of this bill.
19 And as I said earlier, my experience in the
20 child welfare administration, both before the
21 creation of ACS, the actual creation of it,
22 and its current configuration -- I know that
23 I'm not the only one in this chamber that has
24 experience in this area.
25 I know Senator Meier has been a law
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1 guardian for children. He's uniquely aware of
2 the problems that these families face. I know
3 Senator Robach has experience. I know many of
4 you through your experience in law
5 enforcement, those of you who are social
6 workers or educators have encountered this in
7 your entire career.
8 And as I listen to the debate
9 today, what I hear is a desire to address what
10 we recognize is a heinous crime and a despair
11 over the fact that no matter what we do, we
12 cannot seem to prevent the abuse and neglect
13 of children.
14 Here's a hard and fast reality,
15 ladies and gentlemen. People who are
16 ill-prepared to have children reproduce every
17 day, and we can't legislate against that.
18 People who should not have children are
19 capable of it and they do it and they don't
20 take care of them and they neglect them and
21 they abuse them, and we cannot really stop
22 that from happening.
23 We can punish them when we catch
24 them, but unfortunately, for us to punish
25 them, they have to come to our attention. And
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1 by the time they come to our attention, all
2 too often the damage has been done. Whether
3 it's abuse or neglect or a combination of the
4 two, whether it's educational neglect or
5 medical neglect, first children have to
6 suffer.
7 And I wish that we could craft a
8 piece of legislation that would prevent that
9 from happening. I wish we could do it.
10 The current Administration for
11 Children's Services is not the agency I went
12 to work for 16 years ago, certainly not. It
13 has been through numerous changes. And at one
14 point, because of the death of another little
15 girl just about ten years ago, Elisa
16 Izquierdo, it underwent a major reform and
17 overhaul, and it became a model across the
18 country for child welfare.
19 But like every incarnation of this
20 agency, if you take your eye off the ball, if
21 you shift resources away, if you don't recruit
22 and retain competent staff, if you cut
23 community-based services, if you just don't do
24 the education and outreach to mandated
25 reporters like teachers, like doctors, like
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1 nurses, if you don't encourage people to be
2 vigilant on this, this is what happens.
3 We've seen in the past two years in
4 ACS a mass exodus of people leaving. It's an
5 incredibly difficult job, incredibly
6 difficult. And unless you have knocked on
7 someone's door in the middle of the night and
8 asked them to give you their children, you
9 really cannot understand just how hard it is.
10 That does not mean that there were
11 not mistakes made in this case, and they will
12 be dealt with. However, if we want to have an
13 impact, and I think we do -- what I hear is a
14 frustration and a desire so that there is not
15 another law named another dead child -- then I
16 think what we can do is address some of the
17 inequities in the child welfare system. And
18 it's not just about throwing money at a
19 problem. It really isn't.
20 It's about going back to the model
21 that we started a few years ago, fine-tuning
22 it. Perhaps there's things we can do in the
23 Family Court law. Are there barriers to early
24 intervention in families? Are our teachers
25 aware of the triggers of the child abuse and
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1 neglect? Are they intervening, or are they
2 calling it in? Do our nurses and doctors
3 know, our daycare providers?
4 And how about an outreach in
5 education to the public? Because before ACS
6 may have failed this little girl, before her
7 doctor did, before anybody else did, her
8 family failed her. They stood by and they did
9 not do anything. Her neighbors failed her.
10 The people in her community failed her. You
11 cannot see a child who is viciously abused and
12 not recognize that there's something wrong.
13 So we all have to understand that
14 it is not just the responsibility of
15 government or the criminal justice system. I
16 hate to use the metaphor that it takes a
17 village to raise a child, but in this instance
18 it does. We are all responsible for the
19 children in our lives and our communities.
20 And I hope that we don't just pass this bill
21 today and then forget about it until the next
22 child is dead.
23 Thursday morning the Assembly is
24 convening hearings on this issue. I think it
25 would be wonderful if members of the Senate
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1 who are in New York City could attend, or if
2 the Senate could convene its own hearings.
3 And perhaps we can finally begin to address
4 the triggers that lead to child abuse and
5 neglect in New York City.
6 Thank you.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
8 you, Senator.
9 Senator Balboni.
10 SENATOR BALBONI: Mr. President,
11 about a week or two ago we had the
12 anniversary, I think it was over 30 years ago,
13 of the brutal murder of a woman by the name of
14 Kitty Genovese. She died in Queens. She died
15 in the middle of the street. And the
16 neighbors could hear her cries, and they did
17 nothing.
18 That case captivated the United
19 States and came to symbolize crime and fear in
20 our cities and the apathy of our neighbors.
21 Well, so has this case captivated us, because
22 there are many elements that are the same
23 here.
24 That's why I object to the
25 characterization of this bill as merely a
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1 sentencing bill, that somehow by enacting this
2 law we automatically assign to a defendant a
3 penalty. Forgetting that there is a justice
4 system that has our constituents as the jury
5 and elected and appointed officials as the
6 judge who will make determinations, based upon
7 this language, as to guilt or innocence.
8 Likewise, the concern about
9 victim-specific penalties is no concern of
10 mine. It is always in our legislative history
11 that we have decided as a society there are
12 certain members that deserve more protection
13 than others. The Latin phrase that is
14 throughout the law is "parens patriae." We
15 are in a position to protect our children.
16 And if someone attacks my children, they
17 should get a much harder penalty than
18 attacking me. So this is a perfectly
19 appropriate response.
20 And lastly, it is wholly
21 appropriate, and not exclusive in remedy, that
22 we choose to express our outrage as a Senate
23 and as a society that this would occur. And
24 it is depressing to think that anyone would do
25 this to a child -- the most vulnerable, the
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1 most innocent. We give voice to those who do
2 not have a voice. To stand by and let this go
3 by is to stand at the abyss of the breakdown
4 of our society, because there's no more basic
5 job that we have to do than to protect our
6 children.
7 Now, hopefully, in a couple of
8 weeks we'll be voting to spend millions of
9 dollars on Child Protective Services
10 throughout every corner of this state. But
11 going to Senator Savino's point, we can't
12 blame the system, ladies and gentlemen,
13 wholly. Yes, ACS failed this individual
14 child. But it's the individual responsibility
15 of the person who committed the crime that we
16 must look to, and that's who we look to today.
17 I'm going to vote aye on the bill.
18 Thank you, Mr. President.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
20 you, Senator Balboni.
21 Senator Marcellino.
22 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you,
23 Mr. President.
24 One problem when you speak late in
25 the session and after a lot of speakers have
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1 spoken before you, many of your points have
2 already been made. So I won't go back over
3 each and every one of them.
4 I too remember the Kitty Genovese
5 case, and I do remember the outcry that
6 occurred after that. And I do remember when
7 they tried to pass legislation, people were
8 standing up and saying: Well, it's not just
9 the punishment, it's the system. And we've
10 got to deal with the system because it failed.
11 It failed.
12 This was in a middle-class
13 neighborhood that this occurred. So it occurs
14 in all neighborhoods. We've had situations
15 tragically occur in my Senate district not
16 that long ago, of a similar nature, where a
17 child was abused.
18 Where were the parents? Where were
19 the schools? Where were the social workers?
20 Where were the courts? Where were the judges,
21 where were the police? We could go on and on
22 and on and lay it off.
23 One of our U.S. Senators said it
24 takes a village -- we've heard that too -- to
25 raise a child. I suggest it takes a community
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1 to protect one. Certainly the parents didn't.
2 What do we do if we pass
3 legislation tomorrow, if we put up legislation
4 that doesn't punish the perpetrator of the
5 act? What if we took the children away from
6 that mother? Would that make us happy? What
7 if we took each and every one of those
8 children out and we said, This is an unfit
9 parent who cannot raise a child because, I
10 don't know, maybe she was a drug addict, maybe
11 she was -- who knows. I don't know the full
12 background.
13 But she was living with a guy who
14 obviously was not stable, and that man killed
15 a helpless child. That man has to be punished
16 for that act. We're going to give him to
17 psychiatry, we're going to put him in an
18 institution where he's given mental health
19 treatment and we don't remember what he did?
20 It's a very difficult question. I
21 agree with you, Senator, it's a complicated
22 issue. But I think what we have to do is
23 separate two things, the social problems from
24 the act itself. The act is unforgivable. I
25 cannot feel sympathy for any adult that
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1 destroys the life of a helpless child. They
2 don't deserve our pity. They just don't
3 deserve it.
4 Senator, I suggest you should
5 change your mind and I think you should vote
6 for this bill, because that's the message that
7 we need to send. I agree with you there has
8 to be an address of the system. We have to
9 look at the cause. Those are the complicated
10 issues, how to help that mother, if she was
11 abused, to come to the right conclusion.
12 How do you prevent someone from
13 having children that they can't care for,
14 perhaps don't even want, but don't know how to
15 stop? It goes on and on and on. It's never
16 ending. And if we keep getting bogged down,
17 the people who destroy a helpless child don't
18 get the punishment they deserve.
19 The punishment this person deserves
20 is Senator Meier's legislation. That person
21 deserves to be off the street and never to see
22 it again. There's no forgiving that.
23 Dealing with the other cause, the
24 other issues, I agree with you. There's the
25 complexity. And I don't have the answer. I
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1 don't have the answer. Perhaps wiser heads
2 will come up with it. But right now we have
3 something before us that we can deal with.
4 And I think we have to get this type of an
5 individual who would act in such a vicious
6 way -- that person has to be taken off the
7 streets to protect society again.
8 We cannot have these people walking
9 around who are going to kill children. We
10 just cannot allow it. As a compassionate
11 society, we want to help people who need help.
12 But as we said before, let the punishment fit
13 the crime. If you commit such a heinous crime
14 as this, you deserve the ultimate punishment.
15 You deserve life imprisonment without parole.
16 Because you don't deserve to be in the company
17 of civilized people.
18 I intend to support this bill.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
20 you, Senator Marcellino.
21 Senator Golden.
22 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, Mr.
23 President.
24 I too rise to congratulate my good
25 colleague Ray Meier and Senator Serph Maltese
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1 and others that worked with the district
2 attorney, Joe Hynes, in Brooklyn to put
3 together a piece of legislation that we
4 believe works.
5 And an estimated over 3 million
6 children were reported to child protective
7 service agencies as alleged victims of child
8 abuse. That was in 1998. And over
9 approximately 1 million of these reports were
10 confirmed. The number has not gone down; it
11 continues to go up. In 2003, 77,086 New York
12 State children were abused or neglected -- 17
13 out of every 1,000 children. It gets uglier.
14 Nineteen percent of the victims were aged 2 or
15 younger, and 52 percent are aged 7 or younger.
16 In the nation overall, and here in
17 New York City and New York State, crime has
18 fallen over 22 percent. But in that area,
19 reports of child abuse and neglect have gone
20 up over 8 percent by 1997 and continue to grow
21 to the present date.
22 In 1998, three children a day were
23 being killed and assaulted and abused and
24 neglected. Dead. Figure that's pretty bad.
25 But in 1999, it went up to almost four a day.
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1 And since 1985 the fertility rate has gone up
2 39 percent.
3 I don't know what message we're
4 waiting to send. I think the message that
5 that body is going to send today is the right
6 message: No more Nixzmary Browns here in this
7 city and this state.
8 So again, I urge all of my
9 colleagues to vote for this legislation. And
10 as we see Nixzmary Brown in New York City,
11 we've seen a couple more children since then,
12 and the numbers continue to grow.
13 So I vote aye, Senator Meier, and
14 thank you for your legislation.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
16 you, Senator Golden.
17 Senator LaValle.
18 SENATOR LaVALLE: Thank you, Mr.
19 President.
20 It seems whenever we have
21 legislation dealing with our young people,
22 this chamber and the members demonstrate a lot
23 of passion and enthusiasm. And certainly our
24 future are our children.
25 And every member here, every single
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1 member -- I was thinking about this through
2 the debate -- really has always been so
3 supportive in what they do, either in their
4 prior lives before being elected or today, in
5 doing things that protect our children to
6 support our children.
7 I think each and every day we're
8 here in session someone is introducing a bill
9 or a bill is being reported from committee or
10 a bill is being passed on the floor that goes
11 to looking at the society, the problems, and
12 how we can make it a better place,
13 particularly when it concerns our children.
14 This session already, if you look
15 at the bills that we've passed, our focus and
16 the intensity has been there to do just that.
17 We are dealing with a situation where there
18 was obviously a depraved indifference to a
19 life. And I think, as we begin to analyze
20 this, I think members who have spoken have
21 really bifurcated the issues and said, yes,
22 there are issues.
23 And that's what I'm speaking of.
24 Every day we're here, we deal with the issues
25 of how we can protect our children. But once
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1 someone shows depraved indifference for our
2 children, then we say, as a society, we must
3 put a law in effect that says you crossed the
4 line and our society will not stand for that.
5 That's what it's all about. A life has been
6 taken.
7 Senator Meier, you are to be
8 congratulated, Senator Maltese, and others who
9 really spent hands-on time in developing this
10 legislation.
11 All of us know that we keep
12 repairing and fixing the system, as I have
13 said so many times. I am afraid that as much
14 vigor that we put in to fix and repair the
15 societal problems, there are those that are
16 dysfunctional, and all the money that we put
17 into the system, and the hard work in our
18 education system and the social workers, goes
19 for naught.
20 We continue to try. We don't shirk
21 our responsibility; we continue to try to fix
22 the system. But at the same time, we cannot
23 turn our backs when a member of our society
24 shows depraved indifference. He must be
25 punished to protect those that really can't
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1 protect themselves.
2 I will be voting in the
3 affirmative, Mr. President.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
5 you, Senator LaValle.
6 Senator Hassell-Thompson.
7 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank
8 you, Mr. President.
9 I would like if the sponsor would
10 just yield for one question.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
12 Senator Meier, will you rise and yield to a
13 question?
14 SENATOR MEIER: Yes, Mr.
15 President.
16 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank
17 you, Senator.
18 Through you, Mr. President, I just
19 need -- this is a question purely of
20 clarification.
21 By naming this Nixzmary's Law,
22 aren't we presuming -- and I heard you use the
23 language "we know," in your presentation, that
24 he did it, that they did it. But aren't we
25 presuming, before this case has been tried,
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1 that in fact we -- we're almost trying this
2 case in a public manner that might, in fact,
3 interfere with the very thing that we want to
4 try to make happen in this case? That's my
5 only question.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
7 Senator Meier.
8 SENATOR MEIER: No. I don't
9 think so at all, Mr. President.
10 We are not prejudging a criminal
11 case. But what we know is somebody beat and
12 tortured this child to death. That is a
13 certainty. The defendant, defendants in this
14 case will have their day in court.
15 What came to light as a result of
16 this case, when you talk to the prosecutor, is
17 the inadequacy of the criminal statutes as
18 they deal with a situation like this. And
19 that's what this case addresses. We're not
20 prejudging any particular defendant.
21 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Just
22 on the bill.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
24 Senator Hassell-Thompson, on the bill.
25 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON:
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1 Senator Meier, thank you for your
2 clarification.
3 I'm not as clear, however, that
4 some of your colleagues in the presentations
5 today haven't really come very close to the
6 line on that.
7 I think that I've worked with you
8 on enough bills and on enough issues that I
9 really do understand your intent. And I
10 believe that, of a few people in this chamber,
11 I think I believe I understand what's in your
12 heart. And that becomes important to me.
13 It becomes important to me because,
14 as someone who has worked with children for
15 much of my life -- I started my career as a
16 pediatric nurse and then went from pediatric
17 nursing to infant daycare and then worked with
18 families with children and have worked with
19 very troubled families over the course of
20 those many years.
21 And I know that what I've tried
22 very hard never to do is to judge whether
23 parents are good parents or bad parents. But
24 I like to try to talk about whether parents
25 are effective in their parenting or
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1 ineffective. It is very clear that this is
2 way over the line of anything that is even in
3 the realm of parenting. And so it is never my
4 attempt to make excuses.
5 But it is my concern that we are
6 not, in this chamber -- and for the first time
7 I heard Senator Balboni say: In a few weeks,
8 when we get to the budget, we're going to
9 begin to talk about where we're going to put
10 the money. And I think that I have stood in
11 this seat over the six years, going into my
12 sixth year, and said at the point we begin to
13 demonstrate in the budget that we care, then
14 we will truly be able to put our money where
15 our mouth has been.
16 And while I don't think that we
17 certainly need to get caught up in the social
18 implications of this issue, we can't dismiss
19 the social implications. Primarily because
20 the neighbors didn't complain either. Nobody
21 came forth. So we have created a society
22 where our children become an endangered
23 species just by virtue of our own silence.
24 This bill talks about speaking out
25 and sending the message. And I want to send
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1 the message, but I want us to be very, very,
2 very clear that in the process of how we -- I
3 almost said "adjudicate," because sometimes I
4 feel like that's what we do here -- but in the
5 process as to how we enact things, that we are
6 clear about what it is that we're attempting
7 to do and to look beyond this moment and say
8 what is it that we're going to do with the
9 siblings of Nixzmary and what are we going to
10 do on a continuing basis because of the kinds
11 of impact that her death is going to have on
12 the other children in that family as well as
13 her classmates and other children who are
14 affected by this behavior.
15 So let us be clear that we have a
16 big job to do, that this is just the beginning
17 of the effort, and that if we really seek
18 justice and love mercy we will really do our
19 job very well.
20 Thank you.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
22 you, Senator.
23 Senator Onorato.
24 SENATOR ONORATO: Mr. President,
25 will the sponsor yield for a brief question?
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1 SENATOR MEIER: Yes, Mr.
2 President.
3 SENATOR ONORATO: Just for a
4 little clarification. I read part of the
5 justification, and the thing that is bothering
6 me, I want to know -- it says you can get an
7 A-I felony for intentionally killing a person
8 under the age of 14 while in the course of
9 committing rape, a criminal sexual act,
10 aggravated sexual abuse or incest against a
11 child, or the depraved indifference or
12 intentional killing of a person under 14 while
13 legally responsible for the care of that
14 child.
15 Now, what if the person who commits
16 the exact same crime is not responsible in any
17 way, shape, or form for the care of the child?
18 Does the same sentence apply to that
19 particular individual with the same crime
20 being committed?
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
22 Senator Meier, do you yield?
23 SENATOR MEIER: I will yield.
24 And, Mr. President, you have to
25 pull that apart, and it starts getting a
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1 little complicated. It would become an A-I
2 felony and therefore subject to life without
3 parole if it was a matter of -- if there was a
4 sexual offense committed along the way, if
5 there were various -- if the murder took place
6 in the course of committing various other
7 felonies.
8 Part of what we've gotten at here
9 is the depraved indifference statute and
10 elevated that to the A-I felony life without
11 parole, where you compound that by the fact
12 that you've got a person in a position of
13 trust.
14 SENATOR ONORATO: But again
15 through you, Mr. President.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
17 Senator, do you continue to yield?
18 SENATOR ONORATO: A person who is
19 not position of trust committing the same
20 crime is subject to the same penalty?
21 SENATOR MEIER: I believe you
22 would, if -- other than the areas that I
23 talked about, I believe you'd be in a category
24 of murder in the second degree. And the
25 sentencing structure -- other than the
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1 categories that I talked, which would be the
2 felony sex crimes and so forth -- counsel has
3 corrected me.
4 If it's an intentional murder of a
5 child, it would still be an A-I felony, but
6 now you're into the indeterminate sentencing
7 category of 25 to life.
8 SENATOR ONORATO: Thank you.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
10 Senator Schneiderman.
11 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you,
12 Mr. President. On the bill very briefly.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
14 Senator Schneiderman, on the bill.
15 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: This has
16 been, I think, a very good debate. I do not
17 for a moment doubt the sponsor's sincerity in
18 this. I join some of my colleagues who have
19 worked with him on other issues in the area of
20 social services.
21 I think the message that some of my
22 colleagues are trying to send -- and
23 particularly, Senator Maltese said it as
24 articulately as anyone. The concern is this.
25 If all we do this session is to enact this
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1 bill, then we in the Senate will have failed
2 Nixzmary Brown.
3 The concern is this. If all we do
4 is -- say we do penalty enhancers, we did a
5 tougher sentencing bill, but we don't deal
6 with the other issues that have been raised
7 here on both sides of the aisle, we will have
8 failed Nixzmary Brown.
9 I agree with some of my colleagues
10 that it's hard to accept that this bill, which
11 deals with such a small, if offensive and
12 outrageous, part of this overall problem is to
13 be named Nixzmary's Law.
14 We are not waiting for the budget.
15 And Senator Hassell-Thompson just spoke about
16 this. We're not waiting for the budget.
17 We're dealing with an Executive
18 Budget that proposes, in the face of the
19 childcare system, the child welfare system
20 that was on display in the inquiry into this
21 horrible murder, an Executive Budget that cuts
22 education funding for kindergarten, that cuts
23 money for the Office of Children and Family
24 Services, that cuts OASAS money for
25 community-based providers. Childcare slots,
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1 the advocates tell us, have a backlog of
2 400,000 in this state. So we're not waiting
3 for the budget. We're dealing with it now.
4 I hope that my colleagues on the
5 other side of the aisle are sincere -- I
6 believe that they are -- that we're going to
7 address these other issues. This is a
8 situation, clearly, where the perpetrator
9 bears primary responsibility. I will vote to
10 support this bill. We have to send a strong
11 message. But let's not kid ourselves.
12 There's responsibility to go around everywhere
13 else.
14 To their credit, in the City of
15 New York they have moved quickly to recognize
16 that child welfare workers -- caseloads have
17 grown too high with cuts. They've added more
18 than 300 employees. They're trying to do
19 something. The Assembly, as has been pointed
20 out, is holding hearings.
21 Let's move to address these
22 problems as well. If we have a package of
23 bills that what we can do in the Senate -- we
24 can't solve all the problems. We can't solve
25 the problems of neighbors who remain silent or
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1 of schools that don't take action when they
2 see a 7-year-old child weighing less than
3 40 pounds with bruises. We can't solve those
4 problems.
5 But in this Senate let's at least
6 commit to do everything we can do to provide
7 the funding, the training and the services to
8 ensure that to the best of our ability this
9 never happens to another child. Then we will
10 have a package of bills that we can call
11 Nixzmary's Law.
12 I hope to see that before this
13 session ends. That, I think, is the message
14 that some of you are hearing here.
15 If you want to vote for a penalty
16 enhancer here, let's not send the message that
17 that's what we in the Senate believe is
18 enough, that that's what we believe is the end
19 of our response to this horrible crime. If we
20 only pass this bill, then we also are failing
21 Nixzmary Brown.
22 I will be voting in support of the
23 bill, Mr. President, but I urge my colleagues
24 that we will be coming back to this issue
25 again and again as the session progresses.
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1 Thank you.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Does
3 any other Senator wish to be heard?
4 Senator Meier, to close.
5 SENATOR MEIER: Thank you, Mr.
6 President.
7 You really have to pull the issues
8 apart here. And like others who have spoken,
9 I reject the idea that either the setting of
10 this crime or the environment of poverty and
11 deprivation or the gross failings in the
12 system are somehow related to the culpability
13 of whomever did this.
14 So yes, this is both a penalty bill
15 and a protection bill. But we do need to step
16 back, and I will say this. This case and
17 other cases bear examination in terms of
18 looking at what happened here, why did it
19 happen, and where were the lost opportunities
20 to save the life of this child.
21 Nixzmary Brown was absent from the
22 school that she attended for some 46 days.
23 That in and of itself should be prima facie
24 educational neglect, and there should have
25 been an intervention through the Family Court.
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1 I asked the district attorney,
2 Mr. Hynes, "Where do you think along the way
3 here something could have been done?" And we
4 identified some places. There was a point in
5 time when this child was brought to an
6 emergency room and examined by a physician.
7 The physician found that her injuries were
8 consistent to the story given to him by the
9 parents of accidental injury.
10 One of the things we need to look
11 at in the very near future, but it will be a
12 budget issue, is this whole issue of making
13 child advocacy centers available in more
14 communities throughout this state. And that's
15 something that my colleague Senator Saland
16 helped to pioneer here. And some of you are
17 familiar with that.
18 We need the opportunity with a
19 child like this, when there is a question of
20 abuse, to take that child to a child advocacy
21 center, where you've got a trained,
22 multidisciplinary group of people, where the
23 physician who examines the child is not a
24 harried and hurried general practitioner
25 serving in an emergency room on his or her
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1 tour of duty, but a pediatrician who
2 specializes in the area of child abuse and
3 knows what to look for.
4 Those are the kind of things we
5 need to look at. Child protective service
6 workers went to the door of this child twice,
7 and the stepfather stepped outside the door,
8 shut the door behind him, and denied those
9 protective workers entry.
10 That situation might have been
11 different if those workers had been
12 accompanied by a New York City police officer.
13 That situation might have been different if we
14 had, either in regulation or even in
15 state-mandated protocols, that the first
16 refusal gets you a trip to Family Court and a
17 warrant to get in.
18 Those are the kinds of things we
19 need to look at. And those are the kinds of
20 things we are going to look at. Senator Spano
21 in the Investigations Committee, Committee on
22 Social Services, Children and Families --
23 we're going to look at all those things.
24 We're talking to the professionals. We're
25 talking to the advocacy community. We're
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1 talking to people who have knowledge in this
2 area.
3 But you know what? Sometimes the
4 things that you do first are the things that
5 are obvious. And what is obvious to me is
6 that someone who would torture a 7-year-old
7 child -- while she begs for mercy -- to death
8 deserves more than a shot at parole after 15
9 years.
10 And this is not just punishment,
11 this is a matter of protection. In our
12 tradition of justice in this country, we
13 believe in something that you might call
14 proportional justice. The punishment should
15 fit the crime. The scholars call it
16 distributive justice.
17 But there's something else involved
18 here. You lock up someone so depraved, so
19 irredeemably evil that they would torture a
20 child to death, for the rest of their lives
21 without parole. They will never kill or harm
22 another child again. And if someone who would
23 do this -- you know, that's an old-fashioned
24 term. Somebody laughed at me the other day
25 when I used it. Someone who would do this to
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1 a child is evil. And if they aren't, then
2 evil has no name or no face.
3 And that's what this bill is about.
4 But this is not the end. We have work to do
5 to protect children in this state. I pledge
6 myself to that. And I reach around this
7 chamber for others who will do the same.
8 Thank you, Mr. President.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
10 you, Senator Meier.
11 Ring the bells.
12 Read the last section.
13 THE SECRETARY: Section 22. This
14 act shall take effect immediately.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
16 the roll.
17 (The Secretary called the roll.)
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
19 Announce the results.
20 THE SECRETARY: Senator
21 Montgomery, to explain her vote.
22 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, Mr.
23 President, I want to just say how much I
24 appreciate the extensive debate.
25 And I hear my colleagues who agree
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1 with me that they also understand that this
2 really is not helping families like Nixzmary.
3 And this really is not, in so many words,
4 several of my colleagues have indicated, even
5 my Republican colleagues -- Senator
6 Marcellino, I appreciate your words
7 especially -- that this really doesn't address
8 the core issue.
9 So this is the penalty phase that
10 we feel comfortable doing, it's easy to do,
11 it's quick, and it's what the public, quote,
12 unquote, demands, that we punish the guilty.
13 And so, yes, we've done that.
14 But you know, Mr. President, in
15 this budget there are going to be cuts in
16 healthcare for working people, poor working
17 people who work for employers who employ more
18 than a hundred people. And most of those are
19 the places where we all shop. Like Home
20 Depot, and if you eat Kansas Fried Chicken,
21 like I do, and a whole list of over a hundred
22 places where people are immediately going to
23 lose their health insurance because of that
24 budget.
25 Some of those people work for home
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1 healthcare agencies. There is a woman who
2 works for a home health care agency who takes
3 care of my aunt who earns $7 an hour. She
4 will lose her health benefits.
5 I guarantee you, Mr. President,
6 we'll be back with the next sensational
7 killing of a child talking about another kind
8 of penalty, whatever penalty we can come up
9 with at that point. So I understand that.
10 That's how the system works.
11 I feel frustrated and I am ashamed,
12 and I say to this body if we don't do better,
13 if we don't do better than this, we have blood
14 on our hands. Because our people send us here
15 to make a difference in their lives, not to
16 try to figure out how we can arrest every
17 moving person in our state other than the ones
18 who sit in here. And some of us will be going
19 to prison too.
20 So, Mr. President, I'm voting no on
21 this legislation. We're not helping Nixzmary
22 Brown and her family and other children like
23 her in our state. Thank you. I vote no.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
25 you. Senator Montgomery will be recorded in
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1 the negative.
2 Senator Malcolm Smith, to explain
3 his vote.
4 SENATOR MALCOLM SMITH: I yield
5 to Senator Stavisky.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: I have
7 the floor here.
8 Senator Malcolm Smith, to explain
9 his vote.
10 SENATOR MALCOLM SMITH: Mr.
11 President, I yield to Senator Stavisky,
12 please.
13 SENATOR STAVISKY: Thank you. To
14 explain my vote, Mr. President.
15 I hope in the coming weeks that the
16 points that Senator Meier has raised -- and it
17 was a very, I think, intelligent and
18 thoughtful discourse -- that it will be backed
19 up at the budget hearings with the proper
20 appropriations so that we can accomplish all
21 of the things that you speak about. I vote
22 aye.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
24 Senator Stavisky will be recorded in the
25 affirmative.
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1 Senator Malcolm Smith.
2 SENATOR MALCOLM SMITH: Mr.
3 President, thank you very much.
4 I do not question the sincerity of
5 Senator Meier and Assemblywoman Nettie
6 Mayersohn, who is from the borough of Queens,
7 who has been championing this issue for quite
8 some time. I congratulate her on her efforts
9 and continued success on this bill.
10 But I do have to stand in support
11 of what Senator Montgomery has put forward.
12 There is no question that this particular
13 crime, no one would want to talk about this in
14 any way that they would accept it or even
15 apologize for what occurred. There's no
16 question about it, it was outrageous. There's
17 no doubt about that.
18 However, putting a Band-Aid on
19 one's body doesn't mean that somebody can't
20 stab you or shoot you somewhere else. And by
21 putting a Band-Aid on this particular problem,
22 yes, we put them away. Yes, we have other
23 laws on the books that will put them away.
24 But the bottom line is if we don't deal with
25 the symptom -- and I heard it today. Senator
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1 Meier mentioned it. I heard Senator Maltese
2 mention it. I know Senator Ruth
3 Hassell-Thompson asked for it.
4 And I just want to be on record,
5 Mr. President, that when the time comes, I
6 hope that we do come back, whether it's one
7 week or it's two weeks, because we do have to
8 deal with the symptoms. There's no question
9 about it. When crimes like this happen, it
10 doesn't happen because that particular parent
11 premeditatively went after that child. It
12 comes from a series of events that drove them
13 to an environment that put them in the frame
14 of mind where they actually committed a crime
15 that in some instances they probably had
16 little control over.
17 So I hope, Mr. President, that we
18 do take the time, enact those things that will
19 counteract the symptoms that have caused this
20 particular problem. If not, as some of my
21 colleagues have said, we will be back here
22 over and over again.
23 What happened to Nixzmary clearly
24 is a problem, but we do have to deal with the
25 symptoms. We've got to have these kind of
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1 things in place that will make sure things
2 like this do not happen again.
3 Thank you very much.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
5 you, Senator Smith.
6 Senator Fuschillo, to explain his
7 vote.
8 SENATOR FUSCHILLO: Thank you,
9 Mr. President.
10 I sat here, like all my colleagues,
11 for many hours, and I want to compliment the
12 sponsor, Ray Meier. A lot's been said I agree
13 with, I disagree with.
14 The fact is that this poor girl was
15 helpless. Did the system fail? Senator
16 Smith, the system failed her. Absolutely the
17 system failed her. And it has to be changed.
18 It should have been changed. Maybe there's
19 too much of a backlog. Maybe they're just not
20 taking the phone calls anonymously seriously.
21 But they should. Because the system failed
22 this helpless girl.
23 But the fact remains that this guy
24 killed her. He brutally abused her, he
25 tortured her. And Ray Meier used the word
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1 "evil." I'd like to use something else to
2 describe this guy. But he is evil. And life
3 without parole the same, getting jail, we're
4 throwing the key away. We're not going to
5 allow you at the age of 41, 42 to have the
6 opportunity again to kill somebody. Because
7 that's what we would be doing.
8 So what I hope is that we don't
9 come back to revisit this issue. I hope the
10 Assembly has the courage and leadership to
11 adopt this bill in their house.
12 I'll be voting in the affirmative.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
14 Senator Fuschillo will be recorded in the
15 affirmative.
16 Senator Diaz, to explain his vote.
17 SENATOR DIAZ: Thank you, Mr.
18 President. To explain my vote.
19 My mother raised eight children
20 alone. Single mother. Single parent. And
21 there were no welfare. There were no coupons.
22 There were no system that we have now.
23 I can hear people saying the
24 system, we have to do something, why people do
25 things. But you know what happened during the
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1 time that my mother raised us eight children?
2 There were something called value for life.
3 But we have lost that. We have lost that.
4 Senator Montgomery says we don't do
5 better, we're going to have blood on our
6 hands. My dear friend Senator Montgomery,
7 this state and this nation is full of blood on
8 their hands. And one million child every year
9 are aborted.
10 So we have -- we have lost the
11 value of life. And people don't care about
12 life. That's why children have been killed,
13 that's why children are being abused, because
14 we have lost that. Until this nation and the
15 this state are going back to value life, to
16 stop the killing -- not only of Nixzmary, but
17 those unborn children too -- we will always
18 have blood on our hands.
19 I'm voting yes.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
21 Senator Diaz will be recorded in the
22 affirmative.
23 Announce the results.
24 THE SECRETARY: Those recorded in
25 the negative on Calendar Number 147 are
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1 Senators Duane, Montgomery, and Parker.
2 Absent from voting pursuant to
3 Rule 9: Senator Breslin.
4 Absent from voting: Senator
5 Wright.
6 Ayes, 53. Nays, 3.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
8 bill is passed.
9 Senator Skelos.
10 SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President,
11 is there any further business at the desk?
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: There
13 is no housekeeping at the desk, Senator.
14 SENATOR SKELOS: I move we stand
15 adjourned until Wednesday, February 8th, at
16 11:00 a.m.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: On
18 motion, the Senate stands adjourned until
19 Wednesday, February 8th, 11:00 a.m.
20 (Whereupon, at 6:05 p.m., the
21 Senate adjourned.)
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