How New York Abolition Law Affects New York Crime

A man accused of four bank robberies in New York was released under the law of January 1, 2020. This law put an end to the pledge on most of the charges of non-violent acts. How this affects public safety, the newspaper writes. The New York Times.

Attention, this is a robbery!

On Friday, January 10, 42-year-old Gerod Woodberry walked into Chase Bank in Brooklyn wearing a Chicago Bulls cap just as 5-9 employees were leaving work. He handed the cashier a note written in red ink. “This is a robbery,” it said. - Large bills only without dyes.

The criminal left the bank that day with a thousand dollars.

Less than four hours before the incident, this same man was released from custody under the new state law, which cancels the bail for most non-violent offenses. Woodberry has been charged with theft or attempted theft at four other New York banks.

“I can't believe they let me out,” he said to the detective as he packed his things.

By 5:35 that night, he was already robbing Chase Bank on Flatbush Avenue. The Brooklyn robbery was the fifth in 12 days when he either robbed or tried to rob a bank. Four days after the robbery in Brooklyn, he decided to do this for the sixth time.

Some law enforcement officials point to the sequence of events involving Woodberry as an example of the risk inherent in new state bail laws that entered into force on the first day of the new year. The Woodberry case was referred to the federal court on Friday, January 10, after he surrendered to the Manhattan police.

Cancellation of collateral: need or threat to security?

New Jersey, California, Illinois, and other states have restricted the use of collateral. But New York is one of the few states that canceled bail for many crimes, without giving judges freedom of action when deciding whether a person poses a threat to public safety.

Even before the law went into effect, district attorneys, judges, county legislators and law enforcement officials warned that it could bring dangerous criminals back onto the street. “No sane, rational and fair criminal justice system requires the prior release of defendants who demonstrate such a determination to commit serious crimes on a consistent basis,” said Richard P. Donoghue, Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. He added: "Preventing judges from considering the danger that a defendant poses to society when deciding on pre-trial detention is counter-intuitive and endangers all New Yorkers."

On the subject: In New York, a freed immigrant criminal killed a 92-year-old woman, the feds blame Bill de Blasio

Woodberry from Walterboro, South Carolina, appeared on Sunday in federal court in handcuffs and was detained pending a bail hearing. If he is convicted of robbing a bank, he faces 20 years in prison.

His lawyer, Samuel I. Jacobson, said that the argument that Woodberry's initial release was an example of a flaw in the new law was not only unsubstantiated, but constituted "flagrant ethical violations" by federal prosecutors who are grounds for dismissing the case. “The United States Attorney has said that no reasonable or rational system will free Mr. Woodberry, but that’s not the issue,” Jacobson said after the trial.

In his opinion, the question is how fair is it - to leave people behind bars only because they are "too poor to make a deposit."

Lisa Schreibersdorf, executive director of the Brooklyn Defense Services, said that under a recently passed law, if Woodberry were re-arrested on charges of state crime involving a bank robbery, the judge would have every right to keep him in custody. “The claim that the bail cannot be paid is a lie,” Schreibersdorf said in an interview. "They step back from the point to interpret it in a way that scares the public."

Other Woodberry Crimes

Mr. Woodberry is accused of a series of crimes involving six banks that he began to commit on December 30. All six incidents involved handing over notes to cashiers at Chase or Citibank. In all these cases, he acted without the use of weapons.

On January 8, New York City police arrested Mr. Woodberry, and two days later he was released without bail.

For the past six months, Woodberry has lived with a friend. He was convicted five times for robbery in South Carolina, one of these charges he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Woodberry's lawyer said the 15-year sentence includes seven years already served and eight years probation.

Senator Michael Gianaris of Queens, a Democrat and longtime New York City Money Bail Cancellation Champion, said that given the nonviolent nature of the charges, Woodberry could have been released from custody even if the new law had not been passed. ... “There is a huge amount of manipulation and demagoguery on the part of those who do not want the long term of detention to be shortened,” he said. "At best, there is misunderstanding, at worst, a deliberate distortion of what the new law requires."

A dangerous loophole in the law

Mr. Woodberry’s arrest is the last of several recent cases that, according to critics of the law on bail reform, illustrate a dangerous loophole in state law.

So, on January 10, a homeless man was released without bail after he was charged with beating two women in Manhattan.

Also on Long Island, opponents of the new law mentioned a case in which a man was accused of a fatal accident and drunk driving. This man was released two days earlier. At the same time, the publication Newsday reported that the judge in this case released him, since work on documents related to the plea agreement was not completed.

Khalil Cumberbatch of New Yorkers United for Justice said that most people charged with crimes and released without bail are peacefully awaiting their day in court. “There have always been and will be cases and events that can be used to intimidate people with new legislation and criminal justice reform in general,” he said. And he added: "But behind every such exception, thousands of defendants await their day in court, obeying the law and participating in the pre-trial process, not in prison, while their jobs, housing and their families' welfare are at stake."