Stan German (NY County Defender Services) on 730 crisis, trial capacity, and bail practices in Manhattan

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Councilmember Burr, all the council members who have taken part in this important hearing this morning.

I think, you know, to just piggyback off what Tina just said, if the city is really committed to closing Rikers Island, it has to build meaningful alternative pathways away from Rikers, which ultimately means far more investment in the community-based services

that address root causes, root cases, and break the insidious cycle of criminalization, incarceration, and recidivism.

With that being said, I really want to get and focus on real issues and offer some real solutions because I don't think we really heard solutions from

prior testimony.

So, Madam Chair, you spoke about the 730 crisis.

Right now, it is taking someone who has been found unfit and committed to OMH custody about 5.4 months to make it to an OMH hospital.

And that's from the time that the commitment order is signed.

If you tack on about another two or three months in order to get the 730 exam, is one party or the other going to controvert that?

We're probably looking at closer to seven or eight months.

That's somebody who is mentally unfit.

Is sitting on Rikers Island not getting the service.

They need.

There are two things that can absolutely happen right now to help alleviate this problem.

Makche alluded to one of them, which is out restoration.

Out restoration can be ordered by a court in particular and suitable cases, but it requires DA consent.

The reality is that we worked with Makche to identify cases that we thought would be suitable for out restoration.

We sent that list to the district attorney's office in Manhattan, and it was dead on arrival.

There was no discussion.

There was no consideration.

The word back was simply they will not consent to out restoration.

For somebody who is found unfit, regardless of the circumstances.

The other tool in the toolbox is OMH.

Now, OMH has a capacity problem.

We all understand that there aren't enough beds.

But OMH also has statutory authority.

To send folks to other hospitals and other facilities, as long as they have the proper psychiatric care that that person can provide.

We are in a crisis right now with mental health and Rikers Island serving essentially as a mental health hospital, which it is not.

So it's going to take creative solutions and creative thinking in order to solve those issues, and those are just two of the matters.

With regard to trial capacity, and after Judge Zayas said what he said about, you know, the court is always ready, I ran out, and I told the judge, well, Judge, what we've seen in Manhattan over the...

last several months is that cases are being what we in the court house call no parted.

What that means is the DA is ready to try the case.

We're ready to try the case.

We show up into the courtroom and there are no parts available.

That means there's no way to send this case to be tried.

The reality is that in Supreme Court, New York County last year tried 230 cases.

Kings comes in at 133.

We've always outperformed the other boroughs when it comes to the number of trials we do in New York County.

We simply need more judges and more resources so we can try these cases.

Because when a case is no parted, it doesn't just get adjourned for a day or for two days.

It could be adjourned for a month.

It could be adjourned for two months, vacations, witness availability changes, which is adding to the delay.

Bail practice in Manhattan.

So Kings County does 37% more cases than we do on a yearly basis.

Yet New York County sends more people to Rikers Island than Kings County does.

And the reality is that 64% of the cases that are being sent to Rikers Island in Manhattan are misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.

If we're truly going to get that jail population down, we need leadership from Mach J and the city and this chamber and the DAs to figure out how do we off-ramp.

The people who are charged with misdemeanors and nonviolence, so that we're not sending them to Rikers Island and adding to an increased jail population.

And the last...

issue I want to address is the ATI courtrooms.

We have seen increased numbers of individuals who are being accepted into ATI in Manhattan.

But the process, the process that DA Bragg's office uses to screen individuals is simply onerous, and it's something we don't see in any other borough.

We can spend months upon months having to supply medical records to not doctors but to prosecutors.

They require proffers, something no other borough does.

Every single person, we have to prepare them, we have to go in, we have to have a meeting, you've got to tell your life story.

And if the answer is no,

We could have spent eight, nine, ten months trying to advocate for somebody to get in, only to be told at the end, it's not going to happen.

And so, you know, the Treatment Court Expansion Act, I know that's an Albany issue, but the fact is we have to take mental health

away from the DAs being the gatekeepers, let the judges and the courts administrate the same way we did with drug diversion about 15 years ago.