On Thursday of last week there was press conference at the Broome County Sheriff’s Office that was less than exciting. The topic was about how local judges arraign people who are arrested. A change to New York’s Corrections Law is not a rousing issue, but in this case, the subject is a glimpse into the future.

The law change allows the Broome County Correctional Facility to hold prisoners after arrest and before arraignment. Many people are probably thinking “why is this news?”, but the key part of the new law is the two magic words “before arraignment.”

For the lucky reader who has not interacted with nuances of our state’s criminal justice system, and probably has no idea how people get put in jail, here’s the explain it to a five year old description; cops put people in jail, and judges put people in correctional facilities. However, the only cops who have jails in New York State are some municipal police departments, i.e. Norwich, Binghamton, Oneonta, Johnson City, etc. This means when deputy sheriffs or state troopers, who have no jails, get tired of an arrested person chained to a bench in their office, they must arraign them in front of a judge who is the only person who can place people in a county correctional facility.

The arraignment procedure for deputies and troopers seems easy enough in theory, but in practice it is usually a challenge and time consuming. During the daytime it is sometimes hard to find a part-time town justice because of their personal work commitments. For a night time arraignment there are rumors some town justices don’t answer their telephone to deal with a slobbering drunk or a volatile spouse beater. Adding to the challenge is the obligation to try to arraign the arrested person where the crime occurred.

The result is a trooper or deputy has a handcuffed prisoner in their patrol car or shackled to their office wall while they do paperwork waiting a judge. Another person affected is the conscientious town justice who does regularly answer his or her phone because they are now the proverbial good horse beaten to death conducting most of the after-hours arraignments.

For those reasons Broome County officials lobbied their legislators in the Assembly (Crouch and Lupardo) and the Senate (Akshar) to amend corrections law to allow the Broome County Correctional Facility - and only the Broome County Correctional Facility - to hold prisoners behind bars before arraignment - those two magic words again. It was nice to see legislators reach across the aisle to save some taxpayer dollars. The governor signed this into law on December 28, 2018 and is effective immediately.

With the law change, a deputy or trooper can drop off an arrested person at the Broome County Facility where they will be securely held until the next scheduled arraignment. The arresting officer is then free to return to patrol or go home without incurring end-of-shift overtime. The plan is for arraignments to happen inside the correctional facility twice daily at 8:00am and 8:00pm for all the new arrestees.

The town justices of Broome County will take turns, if they chose, as the presiding magistrate of the centralized court room. They will also receive a $250 stipend for each session in addition to their town or village salary. But wait, there’s more.

Even though this is a one of a kind law for Broome County, it foreshadows things to come and not all of the locally elected town justices are on-board. Some feel this is an attack on their Home-Rule authority. Others feel this is the beginning of the end of non-attorney lay persons on the court bench in New York’s criminal justice system – which it probably is. Predictions are local justices will someday only hear cases involving town codes and possibly traffic offenses. If and when this happens, it will be a real shame because locally elected town justices do so much good for their community, especially for young residents who are first-time offenders.

This law change is only a portion of the new vision for accused criminals in New York State; that no person accused of a crime goes in front of a judge without an attorney from the public defender’s office, whether they want it or not. There is no mention of additional state money earmarked to ensure a prosecutor from the District Attorney’s office will be at arraignments to represent crime victims, the police or the people of this state. Leaving out District Attorney funding may be an oversight, but ask a DA and they think it is by design. This is what we can expect in the future of criminal justice in New York State.