Carnright: “The pendulum has swung too far …”
KINGSTON – Ulster County District Attorney Holley Carnright 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 on Friday, he said the legislation was hastily drafted and leaves DAs out of the loop for certain serious criminal prosecutions.
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 said. “I would table the bill. This doesn’t have to be a jump off the cliff, all-in thing.”
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.
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.
