Carnright: “”A jump
off the cliff, all-in thing”
KINGSTON – Ulster County District Attorney Holley Carnright Friday
criticized aspects of a proposed law which amends the Juvenile Justice
Act as “a jump off the cliff, all-in thing.”
Speaking at the county Law Enforcement Center in Kingston, he said the
legislation was hastily drafted and leaves DAs out of the loop for certain
serious criminal prosecutions.
Currently a New York prosecutor has discretion over whether to charge
a juvenile as an adult, under certain circumstances. But if the new law
passes in two weeks, that will all change in 2017, and offenders under
age 21 can be automatically placed into the family court system as juveniles.
Included in the law are felonies such as rape, heroin sales, and domestic
violence. Criminal records could be later expunged. Furthermore, juvenile
rapists would be exempt from sex offender registration, Carnright said.
The law would mandate separate detention facilities for juveniles on a
much larger scale, without clear funding sources, and severely limit how
underage suspects could be questioned by authorities in the future.
Carnright said that many of the reforms already exist under the current
system, however the new rules would exclude judges and DAs from the process
altogether.
Although he supports many aspects of the bill, and agrees with its general
principles, Carnright says the law is too extreme.
“The pendulum has swung too far into the area where I think we are
taking away protections that we now have,” he explained.
He recommended that the bill be tabled and further discussed and “talk
intelligently about what parts of the bill are really good and can go
forward, and which portions of the bill perhaps we pull back from.”
The legislation was introduced two weeks ago as part of Governor Andrew
Cuomo’s upcoming budget, and could quickly be approved if nobody
carefully examines its 166 pages of legalese, Carnright warned. He called
the proposed changes “seismic.”
The DA is drafting a letter to state legislators detailing his concerns.
