In New York, prosecutors are fired en masse: what is the reason

New York prosecutors are quitting en masse, citing pandemic burnout, low pay and two overlapping laws that have fundamentally changed the nature of their jobs, the news was shared. New York Times.

“They just can't do it anymore,” Darsel Clark, the Bronx district attorney, said in an interview Friday. “The money is not where it should be, and the work-life balance has become unmanageable.”

The number of resignations is growing

This year alone, 36 people left the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office and 44 from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. At least 28 people have left the Bronx, and the nine Staten Island assistant district attorneys who left this year made up about 10 percent of the office's prosecutorial staff. The Queens office has told the New York City Council that it is on track to double last year's resignations this year.

Last year, the district attorneys of Manhattan and Brooklyn, each with about 500 prosecutors, lost almost a fifth of their workforce. Which sharply exceeded the average retirement rates until 2020. The Bronx is losing lawyers at the same rate, with a total of 104 people fired since July. District attorneys replace their former employees whenever possible, often exchanging experienced prosecutors for untested ones.

When the pandemic hit New York two years ago, it derailed nearly every lawsuit. At the same time, two new state disclosure laws went into effect — the sharing of all evidence, potential evidence, and other materials related to a case. Prosecutors say the measures, which were intended to make trials fairer for defendants, create a burdensome amount of paperwork.

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New laws: pros and cons

The first law requires prosecutors to receive and hand over hundreds of documents in many cases. And this is a complex task that can make it difficult to interview witnesses and other preparations for the trial. The second law ties the release of these materials to reduced trial times, putting pressure on prosecutors to collect all materials after charges are filed. (This law is known as Caliph's Law, named after Caliph Browder, a teenager who committed suicide after being held without trial for three years on Rikers Island.) devices for six months. Prosecutors are also still required to hand over a similar number of calibration reports after the defendant has used the device.

The ratio of work and wages

New laws are not the only reason for layoffs. District attorneys say their city budgets are too small to allow them to pay prosecutors competitively. Despite the cost of living in Manhattan and Brooklyn, the starting salary for prosecutors in those areas is $72. In the Bronx, that's $000. This also coincided with the pandemic, which led to a record number of voluntary layoffs in all industries.

District attorneys say their employees are struggling. Ms Clarke said her office's lawyers, swamped with paperwork, could have made $30 more. Had done similar tasks for law firms, which could also allow them to work from home. “Why not do it?” she asked.

State legislators rewrote the discovery law in 2019. Since defense lawyers have said prosecutors are withholding key evidence. Previous law required them to hand over certain evidence only after defense lawyers requested it in writing. Because the defendants, most of whom are people of color, were not privy to the full extent of the evidence against them. They often agreed to plea bargains rather than risk going to trial.

“The defense bar was basically in complete ignorance of the substance of the case,” said John P. Buza, a former Manhattan District Attorney who is now practicing law as a partner at Konta, Georges & Buza, PC.

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Prosecutors' opinion

Public defenders have argued that without pressure on prosecutors to turn up exculpatory facts, their clients are constantly at risk of wrongful conviction. Prosecutors are now required to hand over 21 types of materials, including all electronically created or stored relevant information. Prosecutors now have to hustle to get stacks of documents - most of them prepared by the New York Police Department - and turn them over to defense lawyers, otherwise the case could be dropped. Prosecutors often handle up to 100 cases at a time. At the same time, a large percentage of their cases currently require significant paperwork.

Caitlin Nolan, an 11-year veteran of the Manhattan District Attorney's office, said in an interview Friday that she started looking for a new job last spring. Despite the hardships of working with low wages, the day-to-day hardships of the pandemic, and the frustration with the new laws. She quit her job in January. “It was difficult to fulfill because so much information was expected from us,” she said. And she added that the need to provide information about witnesses was especially nerve-wracking.

In a recent testimony presented to the New York City Council, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg illustrated this burden. He said that until 2020, his office used about 32 terabytes of data storage. Today it uses 320 terabytes, which is 900 percent more than it has been in two years.

Tina Luongo, the lawyer in charge of the Legal Aid Society's criminal defense practice, said they agree that prosecutors and public defenders need more money to earn competitive salaries, especially in light of crime detection laws. “High workloads, even for public defenders, lower morale. I'm not going to deny it,” she said. Counsel expects the state to give local prosecutors tens of millions of dollars to staff in its upcoming budget.

Last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed changes to the disclosure law that would prevent a judge from dismissing a case if the prosecutor was "substantially in compliance" with disclosure obligations. Ms. Luongo said that various counter proposals are being negotiated.