Judicial/ AT Court Committee Report

League of Women Voters^®
of Schenectady County

Balancing Justice

JUDICIAL/AT COMMITTEE 2009-2010 REPORT.

JUDICIAL/AT COMMITTEE 2009-2010 REPORT

Helga A. Schroeter and Laura Zeliger Judicial Committee Co-Chairs
The committee spent this past year focusing primarily on juvenile justice issues, since New York State is under pressure to change and improve its woefully inadequate system of dealing with juvenile delinquency. The state's secure juvenile delinquent facilities have a history of abuse and show a lack of rehabilitative and mental health services. New York is also one of only two states to treat juveniles as adults at the age of 16, if they commit a felony. It puts very young delinquents into the adult prison system. Furthermore, the vast majority of kids in the secure facilities are persons of color. In order to gain a better understanding of the problems with the current system and to learn about some of the proposed changes, the committee invited several guest speakers. We heard from Joe Mancini who is in charge of juvenile probation in Schenectady County, from Joe Gallagher, who worked for Northeast Parent and Child Society for many years and currently holds the position of Executive Director of Mohawk Opportunities, and from the Hon. Joanne Assini, who is finishing her term as Family Court Judge at the end of 2010. In May, several committee members also attended a luncheon forum in Albany on Juvenile Justice issues, sponsored by the Fund for Modern Courts and the NYS Bar Association. Some of the topics to be addressed to achieve reform are proposals to move juvenile probation from the executive branch into the Office of Court Administration; to create more therapeutic foster homes and to put only those juveniles into detention who are a danger to society or to themselves; to provide more assistance to troubled families and to introduce legislation to change the threshold of age 16 for juvenile delinquents to 18, more in line with most other states. The committee has also continued to be involved in the county's prisoner re-entry program as it is being implemented in Schenectady County under the guidance of District Attorney Bob Carney and the Center for Community Justice. We will continue to monitor how the county addresses all these challenging issues, and we will advocate for changes which address rehabilitation instead of punishment. Committee members were Maxine Borom, Julie Burgess, Eunice Chouffi, Joan Elliott, Betsy Forkas, Sally Knutson, Linda Muralidharan, Inge-Lise Pangburn, Flora Ramonowski, Linda Ward, Jean Wilkinson and Connie Young.

Report on the Albany Law School Forum on Wrongful Convictions
Submitted by Helga Schroeter, Co-chair Judicial/AT Committee
"Wrongful Convictions: Understanding and Addressing Criminal Injustice" was the topic of a panel discussion held at the Albany Law School on Thursday, March 4, 2010. Since 2007, the Albany Law Review has held the State Constitutional Commentary Symposium in honor of former Appeals Chief Judge Lawrence Cooke. This year's symposium was moderated by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman with five distinguished panelists. Judge Lippman opened the discussion with a brief overview of the history of wrongful convictions, stating that human error has been the leading cause and that recent access to DNA evidence has resulted in many exonerations. He has established a permanent task force on wrongful convictions. Mr. Lippman introduced each panelist and allowed 15 minutes per presentation.
1) James R. Acker, Distinguished Teaching Professor of the School of Criminal Justice at SUNYA outlined the leading causes of wrongful convictions, such as misidentification, undue influence of law enforcement producing false confessions, incompetent defense, witness lies, prosecutorial misconduct and the poverty of defendants. He said that many reforms can be achieved administratively without waiting for legislation.
2) The Hon. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., New York County District Attorney, pointed out that prosecutors are active partners in seeking justice and avoiding wrongful convictions. He is establishing a conviction integrity program, headed up by senior staff with an outside panel of advisors, which includes former Appeals Court Associate Judge Howard Levine.
3) Amy Bach, author of "Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court," talked about her observations in various courts where she witnessed "assembly-line justice" and where speed equals success. She called courts the most unexamined institution and she also alluded to the ongoing "race" issue connected with wrongful convictions.
4) Saul M. Kassin, Distinguished Professor of Psychology of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Professor of Psychology at Williams College, MA, talked about the additional victims of crime, especially the families of both victims and perpetrators. He pointed out the frequency of eyewitness mistakes (between 20 and 25 %) and also the high number of false confessions.
5) The final speaker was Stephen Saloom, Policy Director of the Innocence Project. He commented that if we convict the innocent, the guilty go free and continue to be a danger to society. He also said that there is resistance to change in our legal system and a strong political trend to be perceived as "tough on crime." In addition, there is a huge crisis in indigents' defense, and judges, prosecutors, public defenders and police are overwhelmed with caseloads.

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