Councilmember Brewer questions Judge Zayas on Rikers-to-court transportation issues

Thank you very much.

You obviously are the star of this discussion.

So thank you very much, Judge.

My goodness.

We've been talking about

I've been at this for a long time.

So I was previously chair of oversight and investigations, and we actually had staff that got on the buses at Rikers and went to the courts.

And this was pre my friend Stanley Richards, but it was always 99% of folks get there.

They don't get there 99% of the time from Rikers to the court.

And so I guess my question is that may not be something that the courts track, but I don't know if you do because you have to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning, don't necessarily get breakfast, you don't necessarily get food when you get there that you want to eat, et cetera.

So there's lots of reasons why one doesn't.

Before Stanley Richards, I don't know what now is, individuals who were supposed to get on, detainees were blamed for not getting on.

That's why the court numbers weren't great, et cetera.

But the buses seem to be a problem.

I don't know if that's something that you track, if you have any anecdotal, but it seems to me that that's a slowing up of the process also.

But I didn't know what you have to say about that.

Sure.

First of all, very happy to, I've known Stanley Richards for a long time.

Very happy with his.

About 40 years, like me?

That's right.

Oh, good.

And so I'm not, I didn't hear the statistics you mentioned.

You know, they're not clear.

In other words, in the past, DOC would say, oh, they all get on.

You know, 99% of folks get to court.

I see.

But it doesn't always work out like that.

So I'm just wondering what you have experienced.

Yeah, I think that number is probably.

Probably inflated.

Yes.

I mean, a lot of defendants are alleged to have refused to go to court, so that's one of the reasons.

We don't know.

But we do keep track.

We definitely keep track of the number of defendants who are being delivered to court every day.

We also have...

Increased a collaboration.

So in every county, we have a liaison with the folks at DOCS.

And there are discussions all day long about what's happening with this defendant.

Why is that defendant not coming?

And there's a lot of communication going on.

If a defendant is, for example, on trial or is supposed to be doing something significant in terms of litigation, doing a hearing, et cetera, the liaison is all over that.

And there are now ways of determining not only whether they were produced, but the time they were produced, the time the bus pulled into the sally port, the time the accused

has been checked in, the area of the holding area that the defendants are in.

And I do think we have stats that we can share with the committee.

Okay.