By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma
Getting out ahead of the difficult problem of prosecutorial misconduct, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo yesterday signed a bill creating a new commission empowered to investigate allegations against prosecutors. But in a Signing Memorandum dated today, Cuomo announced that the legislature had agreed to modify the bill in the next session to address concerns that it violates the New York State Constitution and could disrupt ongoing criminal cases. Specifically, according to the Signing Memorandum, the law will be immediately amended so that the new commission will not include active, sitting judges; the Appellate Division (rather than the Court of Appeals) will oversee its decisions; and the composition of the eleven-member commission will be “balanced.” In addition, and perhaps more concerning, the amendment will “protect active, pending investigations.” While it is not clear exactly what that means, I suspect that a person with a grievance against a prosecutor during an active criminal case would have to wait until the case is concluded to initiate an investigation by the new commission. That makes sense — but only as long as trial judges maintain their independence and are willing to provide a remedy for prosecutorial misconduct within the criminal case itself.
In the signing statement, the governor clearly endorsed the spirit of the bill as written: “At its core, our criminal justice system must fairly and consistently investigate and prosecute claims, convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent, without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or any other protected classification. When any prosecutor consciously disregards that fundamental duty, communities suffer and lose faith in the system, and they must have a forum to be heard and seek justice.”