Pushback grows to Hochul's proposed discovery changes

"The budget debate to change New York's discovery laws has started to heat up as pushback mounts against Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposal to roll back the 2019 law that hastened the deadline for prosecutors to turn over legal evidence to defense.

"Hochul proposed evidence-sharing changes in her executive budget to avoid case dismissals when a judge fails to disclose materials they deem irrelevant and to make penalties for discovery violations proportional to criminal charges after an uptick in dismissals of low-level criminal cases in New York City on technicalities.

"'We have to have a system that people can trust and believe in, and believe that they're going to get a fair process and get due process,' said Cordell Cleare, a Manhattan Democrat.

"The Senator said she plans to push her fellow lawmakers to reject Hochul's tweaks, which she argues would enable prosecutors to use discovery as a weapon to compel innocent people to plead guilty to a criminal charge before they've seen the evidence."