New York State of the Judiciary Address of 2015 - "bail reform"?

9 BILLION dollars, ladies and gentlemen, homeowners in the State of New York.

That's the annual cost of pretrial detention in New York.

61%

That's the share of people held in New York jails who are put in jail before trial without bail or with a bail that they cannot pay, the number quoted in the yesterday's "State of the Judiciary 2015" address by Judge Jonathan Lippman, page 16.

Let's count.

That's $5,490,000.00 - 5 BILLION 490 MILLION dollars YOU pay PER YEAR to detain people who are presumed innocent, before trial.

No wonder we have a budgetary crisis in this country.

No wonder people cannot pay their mortgages because of high property taxes.

No wonder people are fleeing the state of New York to go to states with lower property taxes.

That's the money.

Now as to how bail issues are decided.

Here is a report by the New York State County Lawyers' Association which describes problems with the push for the so-called "bail reform" quite well:

(1) that it is inappropriate to set bail on people in such a way that people cannot afford it;
(2) that it is inappropriate to consider, for the so called "public safety" considerations, the same factors as when the judge decides whether the defendant will or will not return to court for appearances;
(3) that what constitutes "public safety" consideration for bail decisions/bail denials is vague and prone to arbitrary enforcement;
(4) that the reasoning for such "public safety" determinations are going to be obscured from public review;
(5) that it is simply wrong to presume that the person who can (or his family or friends can) pay a high bail is automatically safer to the community than the defendant who cannot pay bail.

Etc. etc. etc.

That report was issued a year and a month ago, on January 15, 2014.

It all fell on the deaf ears of the New York State Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals Jonathan Lippman.

In his State of the Judiciary Address he pushes for bail-for-public-safety as the paramount issue, while ignoring all concerns raised by practitioners (and judges, by the way) in the NYCLA report of January 15, 2014.

It is understandable that, with the possibility of Lippman's 70-year-old childhood friend Sheldon Silver starting to crack up and cough up to the prosecutors information about his still high-standing friends to avoid dying in prison, Lippman's goal at this time may be to present as many populist ideas to the public as it is humanly possible.

But, as the NYCLA report said, presuming that those who can pay bail are safer to society than those who cannot pay that bail is not a reasonable consideration.  It is quite a stunningly un-democratic consideration actually for Lippman who is knocking himself out at every turn with his claims as a champion of "access to justice".

Once again, nothing not to be expected from this judge who has no litigation experience before he was propelled to the Supreme Court bench and then propelled higher and higher, until he hit the ceiling (in the State of New York) by his - now disgraced - friend Sheldon Silver.

But thank you for the numbers, Judge Lippman.

They are, once again, staggering, for a human being, an attorney, a New York homeowner and a taxpayer.

And, yay, let's decide whether a person is or is not safe to the community by his own and his family's ability to pay his/her bail.

After all, money, status and power is all what justice system - and the judiciary - is concerned about.  Isn't it?