Seaman: Changes to discovery laws 'absolutely necessary if we want a system that actually seeks justice'

Guest Editorial by Niagara County District Attorney Brian D. Seaman

Amongst the terrible “criminal justice reform” legislation churning in Albany this year, there is one bright spot. Within Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget proposal are some fixes to the “discovery reform” legislation that was passed five years ago. The fixes that are being proposed by the governor would do nothing more than eliminate some of the gamesmanship that has literally taken over the criminal justice system in New York, turning it into a contest of dismissals on technicalities. With the governor’s fixes, there would be no change to the information defense counsel receives. Defendants will continue to receive every bit of information in the hands of police and prosecutors that is relevant to the case. The difference would be that dismissal of the case would no longer be the result of minor, inconsequential “discovery violations.”

I have written previously about the mayhem that “discovery reform” has wrought on the criminal justice system. Rather than explain the various provisions of the law again, I will give an example. Here in Niagara County, we had a home invasion burglary case where a masked man with a gun broke into an apartment in Niagara Falls and accosted the residents. The police arrived on the scene not because the residents called 911 – they hadn’t had a chance – but because a neighbor called to report a similar incident with the same individual that happened just minutes before. The police only responded once and spoke to the residents of both apartments. The suspect was identified, and a grand jury indicted him for the burglary of the second apartment only.

My office provided defense counsel all of the police reports, 911 recordings, police radio transmissions, witness statements (from residents of both apartments), photographs, photo arrays, officer notes, video from body-worn cameras, transcripts of testimony, criminal record searches of all witnesses, information about the disciplinary records of all officers, etc., etc. Hundreds of documents and records. However, we were unaware that the police department actually created an additional report, under a different case number, for the first apartment that was broken into. Mind you, no additional information was contained in the new report. Not one single new fact or piece of evidence that hadn’t already been provided was contained in this additional report. The defense attorney brought a motion alleging a “discovery violation,” and the indictment was dismissed. End of case; no ability to re-charge; case closed.

The above example is not an aberration. Real cases with real victims are being dismissed every day all across New York state on technicalities like the one described above. It has been reported that up to half of DWI cases in some downstate counties are being dismissed because of “discovery violations.” We have not fared quite that poorly here, but we are regularly having cases dismissed on technicalities. A Niagara Falls City Court judge recently dismissed another 15 cases for “discovery violations” where, as usual, the “missing” materials had absolutely no conceivable bearing on the actual case.

The proposed changes in the governor’s budget are the result of a collaboration between the five DAs from New York City and the governor. In other words, these are not just the complaints of political conservatives. These changes are what is absolutely necessary to stop the havoc discovery reform has caused.

Of course, down-state defense attorney advocacy groups are ramping up the public relations machine and rhetoric to try to prevent these changes to the discovery law. They are more than happy to have the concentration of the legal system be on finding grounds for technical dismissals, rather than testing the actual evidence of their clients’ guilt. One defense attorney recently told one of my ADAs that, since there is no chance of a dismissal in his case (the common provision allowing for technical dismissals didn’t apply in that particular case), he wasn’t going to worry about the discovery provisions. In other words, the discovery game he normally plays has nothing to do with access to actual evidence, it is all about finding a way to get a technical dismissal.

The changes to discovery laws being proposed by Gov. Hochul are absolutely necessary if we want a system that actually seeks justice. They deserve the public’s full support.