Recent Reforms/Developments in the Law
Raise the Age
Effective October 1, 2019, New York State changed the age that a child can be prosecuted in criminal cases as an adult to 18 years of age .
The police are required to notify parents and legal guardians when a juvenile offender or adolescent offender is arrested. Any questioning of the child must be in an appropriate location and limited to a reasonable amount of time. Parents who are present at questioning must be given notice of rights as well.
As a result:
16 and 17-year-olds charged with misdemeanors under the penal law are considered Juvenile Delinquents and their cases are decided in the Family Court.
16 and 17-year-olds charged with misdemeanors under the Vehicle and Traffic Law are considered adults and their cases are decided in the local criminal court.
16 and 17-year-olds charged with felonies are considered Adolescent Offenders (AO) and their cases start out in the Youth Part of the Supreme or County Court.
AOs whose cases are removed from the Youth Part in Supreme or County Court to Family Court, will then be considered Juvenile Delinquents. If the AO is charged with a felony under the Penal Law or the Vehicle and Traffic Law, and also charged with a misdemeanor under the Vehicle and Traffic Law, all the charges may go to the Youth Part together. The felonies may be sent to Family Court, but the misdemeanor under the Vehicle and Traffic Law will either stay in the Youth Part or be sent to the local criminal court.
Sealing of Convictions
On January 1, 2020 the New York State Bail Reform Act went in to effect.
As a result, pretrial detention and cash bail is eliminated as an option in an estimated 90 percent of arrests. For the remaining cases, judges will maintain the option of setting cash bail or requiring reporting conditions for release.
For those charged with the most serious crimes — including almost all violent felonies and certain nonviolent felonies, such as sex offenses and witness tampering — very little has changed in New York. In those cases, judges will retain the option to set cash bail.
NOTE - As of April 2020 the State Legislature is expected to role back some aspects of the bail reform, adding a number of misdemeanor and felony crimes to the list of those subject to a cash bail order, which allows a judge to keep someone in jail while awaiting trial unless they pay a certain amount in cash or bond.
NYS Bail Reform Act 2020
New York does not allow you to completely erase or expunge your criminal records. Unless you were adjudicated a Youthful/Juvenile Offender at the time of sentencing, your conviction remained for life.
However, as of October 2017, New York enacted a criminal conviction sealing law which allows for sealing of a limited category of criminal records under certain conditions.
The new law provides for general sealing authority for a wide array of adult criminal convictions if certain conditions are met and various factors are found in your favor.
As a general rule, only two criminal convictions may be sealed, and only one of them can be a felony. Although you can only seal up to two eligible criminal convictions, if you were convicted of several crimes for the same criminal act, they may be treated as a single conviction for sealing purposes.
Not all criminal convictions are eligible for sealing. Certain convictions, such as those related to crimes that demonstrate a significant danger to the public, are not eligible for sealing.
Bottom line - If more than ten years has passed since your last conviction, it may be worth a call to explore the possibilities.
Mandatory Discovery 2020
As a result of the newly enacted discovery laws, prosecutors must automatically provide all relevant information pertaining to the case in a timely fashion. The defense is no longer required to file a written request for it.
Under the new law, prosecutors must provide the defense with all evidence it has access to within 15 days of the defendant’s arraignment. This time frame can be extended by another 30 days if there is a large volume of material, or if prosecutors don’t have the material in their possession after 15 days.
The list of materials includes anything deemed explicitly favorable to the defense. Prosecutors are also required to provide the name and contact information of anyone with information relevant to the case and any statement made by someone with information relevant to the case – regardless of if that person will testify during the trial .
All electronic recordings , video footage and body-cam from police officers are included in this requirement.
The new law still permits judges to issue a “protective order” preventing the defense from accessing discoverable material if the prosecution shows good cause, such as protecting a vulnerable witness who may be put at risk if his or her identity is made available too quickly. The protective order can alter the discovery timeline to limit the amount of time a defendant would have to access information about that person.