By now, you've probably heard that
the state legislature finally
passed a budget about a month late.
A big reason for the delay was
the fight over bail reform.
Last year's governor's race was
closer than many people expected,
in part because Republican Lee
Zeldin hammered Governor Kathy
Hochul on the issue of crime.
And he blamed bail reform,
which did away with cash bail,
for many nonviolent offenses.
So the governor insisted
that as part of the budget,
the state give more discretion
to judges to impose bail under
some more circumstances.
The law no longer requires judges to
use the quote least restrictive means
to ensure a defendant returns to court.
The governor is happy about the change,
but that's not the case for
politicians on her left or her right.
Many Democrats say this was an unnecessary
change that rolls back progress.
Republicans blasted it as
not going far enough.
Well,
tonight we find out where Erie
County's top prosecutor stands on it.
Joining me live is District
Attorney John Flynn,
someone who pushed for changes
to bail reform.
So do you support what we ended
up seeing change there and how
much of a difference will it make?
Well, I know I'm probably in
the right spot here, Mike,
because when one side's against
it and one side forward,
I guess they're both against
it and I'm in the middle here.
I know it's probably a good law
and and I do think it's a good law.
I do think that that this has the potential.
To be a big deal because now judges
are going to have more discretion.
Now judges are going to have the
ability to set bail higher on people.
Because before with the least
restrictive means, you know,
you you think about it, I'm a judge,
the defendants in front of me,
The judge has the concept now what's
the least restrictive thing I can do?
That's gone now.
So that means that judges are
going to be able to put higher
bail on people and in my opinion,
improve public safety.
The impetus for making changes to bail
reform when it happened years ago was
the spike in crime that we've seen.
Part of this came out of the pandemic, right?
It wasn't limited to New York State.
We saw this in a lot of other places.
But that sort of issue aside,
we want to look at where crime is right now,
and I'll show people what
Buffalo's mayor said earlier this
week in the city of Buffalo.
These are good numbers no matter
how you square it, right?
Violent crime down 11%,
Homicides down 50%,
Shootings down 28%.
Also got new numbers from New York City
today showing shootings at homicides
down this April versus a year ago.
Is your belief that bail reform
will continue to be able to
see these crime numbers go down
from very high levels where
that were? Absolutely.
And I remember that these numbers
are compared to last year.
What the the true numbers you want to
compare them to are before bail reform,
which just happens to be before COVID.
All right, so the bail reform
kicked in on January 1st, 2020.
COVID came March of 2020.
So what we need to do is compare
these numbers this year with 2019,
2018 and we're still higher.
And so hopefully now the this
tweak to the bill reform will keep
going having those numbers go down.
Aside from bail reform,
the governor also announced some
other items in the budget to help
law enforcement and specifically
to help with public safety and
district attorney's offices.
I want to play part of what she
said about that earlier today,
but I know that changing bail laws
won't solve all of our problems.
I never said it would.
So we're investing in aid for prosecutors,
prosecution and defense funding all
across the state so the criminal justice
system can function efficiently.
And that's why we're providing
district attorneys across the state
$170 million to help do their job.
The governor also announcing $100 million
for prosecution and defense funding,
a bump in pay for public defenders.
But when it comes to that
dollar figure she gave there,
it's a big $170 million.
What are you going to get out of that
and and what are you going to do with
it? I'm going to get a lot out
of it because the way it works,
Mike, is that the the percentages
are based upon upon the size of
your county, so Erie County.
Is going to get a good chunk
of that over $100 million.
And so that money is going to go
toward all of us in law enforcement
and me and the prosecutor's office,
hire more prosecutors.
Improve our IT for discovery,
improve our,
improve our infrastructure to communicate
with the Chitawaga Police Department,
Ambers Police Department to
get the discovery in faster
and get out the door faster so
we can comply with the laws.
So that this money is huge.
This money is helpful.
I applaud the governor.
I can't thank you enough.
And the bottom line is that
at the end of the day,
the bail and the discovery money
is going to improve public safety
and that's the bottom line.
You talk about discovery money because
the discovery law changed as well.
And I know that's something that
we talked about a lot here.
Is that something that wasn't in
the budget that you wish maybe have
been addressed or is there anything
else public safety wise that you
feel like kind of just didn't
make it across the finish line?
Well, that there were discussions
on changing some of the bail law,
some of the discovery? Laws.
But at the end of the day, they don't.
They went nowhere.
And so we have to be realistic.
And when you're a realist,
you have to recognize that there
are those in the legislature,
especially the leaders from New York City,
who do not want any changes at all.
And so the reality is,
is that we're probably not going to
get any changes to the discovery laws,
at least this year,
but the money.
Is certainly going to help
just in the 30 seconds that I have left here.
Do you think, looking at the
bail reform tweak as it was,
that it strikes the right balance
between not putting people in jail
just because they don't have money,
but also addressing public safety?
Does it, does it match that?
Absolutely, Because again,
it only affects the qualifying offenses,
which are the most serious charges,
the non qualifying offenses,
the misdemeanors,
the low level nonviolent felonies.
They're not touched at all.
Those people are not
going to be incarcerated,
not going to be in pretrial and fireman,
and it's not going to hurt the
lower economic class that they
were targeted 4 years ago.
Erie County District Attorney John Flynn,
I really appreciate you coming in.
It's good to get your thoughts on this.