Evidence of Unfairness: New York’s 2020 Discovery Statute Reduced Fairness for Defendants, Victims, and Society
To ensure fairness and safety for all citizens, it is crucial to evaluate the impact of criminal justice reforms. In this article, I argue that some recent statewide criminal justice reforms legislated with the avowed goal of making the criminal justice system fairer have had the opposite result. As a case study of this phenomenon, I focus on New York State’s discovery statute, which went into effect in January 2020. I detail specifically what the law changed and explain the profound impact of those changes on the functioning of local district attorneys’ offices.
I then analyze data showing a substantial shift in New York state court outcomes and explore their relationship to discovery reform. Throughout, I highlight ways in which the law has actually created a less fair system for defendants, crime victims, and society as a whole. In particular, I argue that, by forcing local prosecutors to make decisions around expedience and exigence rather than around considerations of justice, the state legislation has harmed overall fairness to the people of New York, whom district attorneys represent. And I propose that the state legislature should—after an honest and thorough evaluation of the data—amend the law to allow local prosecutors to operate in a fairer way.