ALBANY – Eight district attorneys appeared at a State Senate Codes hearing on Monday concerning the implementation of new discovery laws that will take effect on January 1, 2020.
“I can assure you that all of our offices are doing our very best to prepare to carry out these laws as best as we can,” said State District Attorneys Association President, Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler. “I am not confident our offices will be anywhere near being adequately funded.”
This was the second of two hearings on the new discovery requirements, which were agreed upon and passed as part of the state budget in April and will require prosecutors to disclose all discovery within their possession within 15 days of arraignment.
After the first in hearing in New York City in September, the DA’s association DAASNY convened a discovery summit to help smaller and mid-sized counties prepare for the sweeping changes which will now require disclosure of all police reports, radio transmissions, 911 recordings, medical reports, body-worn camera footage, phone records and cell tower information, forensic and laboratory evidence as well as all many other documents related to prosecution. This law will also significantly increase the number of cases where full discovery will be required.
“I cannot stress enough how the process of obtaining and preparing discovery for exchange is extremely labor intensive. Smaller offices with fewer ADA’s and investigators will be at a significant disadvantage,” said Hoovler. “To begin to even try to comply with these laws will require completely new processes and management of staff. I learned that governments of many smaller counties do not have the resources to adequately fund the requests that are being made by local district attorneys.”
