#Politicians, public defenders urge all NYC DAs to stop setting bail

Elected officials and public defenders are calling on Big Apple prosecutors to stop requesting cash bail in all cases, saying it’s the “driving cause” behind the “ongoing humanitarian crisis” at the beleaguered Rikers Island.

Four state senators, nine Assembly members and one City Council member sent an open letter to the city’s five district attorneys on Tuesday, saying prosecutors’ decision to seek bail is subjecting thousands of presumptively innocent New Yorkers to “torture.”

“Throughout the year, a rising jail population has led to the steady degradation of the conditions at Rikers. In the last few months, the conditions have worsened so substantially that people are dying regularly and an unprecedented crisis prevails,” says the letter, referencing the 12 people who’ve died at the facility this year.

“While there are other contributing forces to this shameful situation — COVID, staff absenteeism, an abdication of DOC responsibility — there is no doubt that the driving cause behind it remains the decision of your offices to seek bail recklessly and in virtually every eligible case. Those decisions now leave thousands of poor New Yorkers — mostly Black and brown — to endure torture every day.” 

A 2020 state law limited the number of crimes for which a judge could impose bail — which critics have blamed for causing a surge in violence across the city.

But the letter, also signed by community groups and public defender organizations like the Legal Aid Society, accused prosecutors of violating bail laws by requesting “unaffordable bail or bail for people who pose no risk of flight.”

The letter included a series of anonymous anecdotes from arraignments in all five boroughs, including one from Brooklyn about a mentally ill man who faced bail of $75,000 cash or $150,000 bond for a weapons charge after he attempted to commit suicide in front of cops. 

“Despite your knowledge that the man was suicidal and had serious physical disabilities, you requested unaffordable bail that sent him to Rikers Island where he suffered trauma and medical neglect, instead of allowing his family to transport him directly to the hospital for treatment,” the letter states. 

In another Brooklyn case, prosecutors requested $50,000 bail for a man with no prior record, accused of stealing packages from the lobby of a building. 

“When this person was taken to Rikers, unable to afford the bail you requested, he spent two entire days on a bus parked outside of [Otis Bantum Correctional Center] because there was no room in intake,” the letter claims. 

In Queens, the letter claims prosecutors “took advantage of one of the exceptions in the bail reform rollbacks” to ask for bail for a defendant with health issues caught shoplifting “winter clothes, toothpaste, soap and cleaning supplies.” 

“Even after three family members of the person were located and volunteered to assist the person in making court appearances — and defense counsel offered to provide the person a phone — you continued to refuse to consent to the person’s release on supervision,” the letter states.

The missive calls on the DAs to immediately stop requesting bail in all cases to “ensure that not a single additional person is held in the inhumane conditions at Rikers” or at the least, consent to bail modifications so people who can pay can be released. 

“Because your offices control bail requests, you can stem the flow of people to Rikers right now. Every time your ADAs request bail be set, particularly when they know that bail is unaffordable, they demonstrate a callous disregard for human life,” the letter reads. 

“Jail is not supposed to be a death sentence. You must act now.” 

The DAs who were sent the letter didn’t immediately return a request for comment.