CHENANGO COUNTY – In light of New York State’s recently enacted justice reforms, Chenango County First Assistant Public Defender Zachary Wentworth discussed some of the changes and the need for reform.

Wentworth said defense attorneys have been pushing lawmakers for criminal justice reforms for years, and have been denied until recently.

“The defense bar has been pushing for change for more than eight years, it’s not like these were thought up overnight,” said Wentworth. “I think the severity of the changes is the product of one side saying we need to make changes, the other side saying no, and then when they’re able to make the changes they pass everything they can.”

“Now I think we need to go back and find the things we can change that are more appropriate for moving forward like giving judges discretion in some instances and revisiting the discovery timeline.”

He said, generally the criminal justice reforms can be split into two different sections – bail and discovery reforms.

“The purpose of bail is to get people to court; if people are convicted of the crimes they are charged with, they’re likely going to go to jail,” Wentworth added. “Then they’ll serve the time that’s required of them.”

He said another idea behind bail reform is that bail at times can affect poor individuals a lot more than it can affect people that have well-paying jobs.

“I might be able to post $500 bail in an hour, but one of my clients might not have two nickels to rub together, let alone $500,” said Wentworth.

He said being incarcerated on bail can put unnecessary restraints on an individual attempting to assist in their own defense.

“The fact of the matter is, it’s difficult in my job to help my client defend themselves when they’re incarcerated,” he added. “They have limited access to things that might be helpful to them, like cell phone messages or videos.”

Wentworth said those sorts of things aren’t easy for individuals to access if they’re incarcerated.

He said in the case of the discovery reforms, lawmakers argued that law enforcement and district attorney’s offices should have evidence prepared as soon as possible, and principals should have the right to a speedy trial. He added that in reality, the reforms are an added pressure on public defender offices as well.

“Even though we have four full time attorneys here, we only have three doing criminal work,” said Wentworth. “I have people in the community that have the impression, ‘Oh, you still have to go to court? I didn’t think anyone was going to jail.’”

“They will get punished when they’re found guilty and one of the points of these reforms are: Why are we punishing people before they’ve been found guilty?”

He said contrary to popular belief, the criminal justice reforms have made the work of a public defender more difficult due to the increased time attorneys will have to spend in court for arraignments.

“Anyone given an appearance ticket has to be arraigned within 20 days,” said Wentworth. “A lot of these courts, prior to this, we only sent an attorney to them once a month, but that’s obviously not going to work if we’re going to need to have representation there every 20 days.”

Wentworth said another misconception is that prosecutors will only have 15 days to turn over all of the evidence in their cases.

“Prosecutors are able to get a 30-day extension if they’re waiting to receive evidence back from crime labs, or if something else is out of their hands,” he said. “There’s another extension available on top of that prosecutors can file for to give them additional time.”

He added that people have also said that public defender’s offices are receiving additional funding while prosecutors aren’t, and that statement is also not true.

“The funds we have that are available to us from the state are funds that were set aside for the purpose of improving quality defenses prior to the enactment of these laws,” said Wentworth. “They aren’t additional funds that were passed down after these reforms were passed.”

“The money wasn’t for this, and while these reforms have complicated what we need to do moving forward, repealing them in its entirety would be a step backwards.”

He said it wasn’t uncommon for someone to spend time in jail waiting for evidence to get back, and for a principal to take a deal for time served because they want to get out.

“A defendant sitting in jail is more likely to accept a plea if they’re able to accept an offer that’s going to get them out that day,” said Wentworth. “Even if they wanted to fight it or if they’re saying they’re innocent, look at it from their perspective, “If I’ve been in 60 days and they're offering me 90 days, I could get out today if I accepted their deal.”

“Or I can ask to go to trial, and that’ll take another month and then I could go to jail for even longer.”

Wentworth said there is a need for meaningful criminal justice reform, and now that something has been passed lawmakers have the opportunity to listen to the legal community and make decisions to revisions sections of the law.

“We still have a job to do, and things still need to move forward,” Wentworth added. “That’s where the bail reform revision aspect of this comes into play.”