Youngmi Lee urges CRD recommendations and early termination of probation
Lee asks DOP to recommend certificates of relief from civil disabilities in every probation report to help people obtain employment and licenses. She also urges DOP to restore early termination for people who have completed probation conditions, noting that clean slate relief depends on early termination.
I'm an attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services, a public defender office where we represent thousands of individuals in both Brooklyn and in Queens.
First of all, I just want to say that BDS is and remains optimistic that the Department of Probation will go back to being
an agency that supports rehabilitation versus being a very much law enforcement, us against you type of agency.
I want to talk about the power of the Department of Probation, specifically about three areas, although there are more.
And I know I only have one minute left.
I do want to talk about certificates of relief from civil disabilities, access to counsel during
pre-sentence investigation report interviews with the Department of Probation, as well as the early termination program.
First, probation has a huge role in determining whether someone could receive a prison sentence, a jail sentence, or a non-incarceratory sentence,
even after an agreed-upon plea.
And I say this because oftentimes when a person pleads guilty and the promised sentence is probation,
The court will order what's called an INS report, a PSR.
They're all the same, a pre-sentence investigation report.
That report is done by a probation officer who, at the end, can make a recommendation.
Oftentimes we find, especially in the last few years, the recommendation has always been jail or prison despite the promised sentence of probation.
We also find that probation officers can and will encourage people to deny their guilt, which then results in the court saying the promised sentence of probation is off the table,
and sometimes judges will threaten hearings, and obviously the person can depart from the promised sentence and send someone to prison.
My one minute is up.
I am going to let you continue because we are light on public testimony.
So for this panel, because you are the defenders and the union, we will accommodate.
Okay, thank you.
I'll try to be a lot quicker.
We learned after the Harvey Weinstein trial in 2020 that attorneys can attend these probation interviews, but only upon a court order.
I have been told by judges that they will grant these requests.
I would just ask probation to streamline the process and that whenever an attorney can and wants to attend these probation interviews, that the attorney just be allowed to without a court order.
It should be just the default.