Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - New York's bail reform laws have been heavily discussed among New York politicians since the sweeping reform in 2019, prohibiting cash bail for all but the most serious misdemeanors and felonies.
In addition, State judges can't hold defendants based on their danger perception. This led to serious blowback and a revision of the reform months later in 2020 and again this year.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul says that some people are not fully aware of what they did when it came to changing bail laws, "I think that people don't understand what we did with bail laws. We did include gun violence cases, we gave more discretion to judges. We took away the situation where cases are being thrown out, because there was not sufficient evidence."
"We made a lot of changes to bail laws, we made sure that repeat offenders recovered, but I think anyone who looks thoughtfully and more objectively than has been the case and our bail laws, they would know that we made significant strides for protecting New Yorkers. That's what I'm focused on. It all comes down to my responsibility to protect New Yorkers," said the governor.
Now, NY's Republic Committee Chair Nick Langworthy, running for NY-23 and Republican U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, running for governor are calling for a serious repeal of these bail reform laws, saying that these laws have failed murder victim 40-year-old Keira Bennefield, of Buffalo, who was shot dead in her car last Wednesday. The main suspect is her husband, 45-year-old Adam Bennefield, who has a detailed violent and nonviolent criminal history and was released on cashless bail.
Related
"Thanks to cashless bail in the dismantling of our criminal justice system, in the state of New York, Adam Benefield was arrested on a slew of domestic violence charges and he walked out the door a free man on his own recognizance were just 24 hours later, he stalked and he murdered his wife, with her children in the backseat. Now, if this doesn't outrage you, if this doesn't scream wrong to you, I don't know what kind of society we're living in anymore," said Langworthy on Friday.
"The bottom line is this, if the governor and the state legislature gave judges discretion of dangerousness as we've been calling on throughout this entire campaign throughout this entire campaign, Keira Hudson [Bennefield] would still be alive today."
Langworthy's democratic opponent for New York's 23rd congressional district, Max Della Pia says that there are some things he doesn't agree on when it comes to New York's bail reform laws, but is unsure if these bail reform laws played as crucial of a factor as his opponent and Zeldin think.
"Bail reform, in general, is the desire to make sure that someone who's poor, but doesn't have a background of violence doesn't present a risk to the public. [Someone] cannot afford to languish in jail, because he can't afford a cash bail, because he'll lose his job and when he can't pay for his rent, can't pay for food, he becomes homeless. That's the goal. What's really causing problems is when you limit a judge's discretion. They see these cases, they see these people. As long as it's not an instance of someone who poses no threat to the public, we shouldn't just let them out the door. Why would, why would we put the public at risk? So when you talk about repeal, that is drastic," says Della Pia.
"There are lots of things about this bail reform law that I do not like. It needs to be corrected so that it balances the social effect of not wanting to put a poor person in jail because they can't afford bail versus putting the public at risk," says Della Pia, "This murder is just horrible and it's awful. But yet, what I've been able to read, has not really told me whether this was actually something that happened under bail reform because he had a pattern of domestic abuse. In fact, he did something similar to this several years ago, it looks like a failure to actually look at this case, in its entirety." says Della Pia.
Most democratic lawmakers are quick to say that there is no real statistical evidence that shows that cashless bail has caused an uptick in crime, but some have made a case for it, "Violent crime is up. It's crystal clear and just a few days ago, even the democratic Albany district attorney said point blank that policies like bail reform and raise the age have demonstrably impacted violent crime and he said this, 'At what number will the body count be enough to prompt action?'" says Langworthy.
The legal system is not always a crystal clear navigation path. Bail reform laws in New York will continue to breed discussion amongst politicians, law enforcement and the concerned citizens.