Governor Hochul: “Seven months ago, I made a vow to stop dangerous criminals from walking free on minor technicalities… My goal was to stop this — protect the rights of defendants, always paramount to us, we hold that belief strongly — but also hold offenders accountable… We fought, we won and we got it done. That era ends today where common sense discovery reforms are now the norm. We champion them and they are to take effect today all across the great State of New York.”
Hochul: “We’re here for those victims to let them know their voices have broken through… Cases will no longer be thrown out over trivial errors that have no bearing, as I said, on guilt or innocence. Criminals will not walk free because someone hit the wrong button uploading a surveillance video. Criminals will not walk free when a police personnel file is submitted a day late or prosecutors leave out a report of which there’s already a duplicate copy of it in the file… Tomorrow, we’ll finally lift the burden that’s been on our justice system to bring justice to victims.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul highlighted essential changes to New York’s Discovery Laws, set to take effect on Thursday, August 7, at a press conference with New York District Attorneys, victim advocates and local law enforcement. Passed as part of the FY26 Enacted Budget agreement, amendments to the discovery process will support survivors of domestic violence and other serious crimes, hold perpetrators accountable and safeguard the right to a fair and speedy trial in New York State.
PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.
A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:
Good morning. Indeed this is a day that will forever be remembered as a day we took back our streets and our communities, and made them safer — please, sit down.
First of all, I want to recognize the elected officials who have been on this journey with us — particularly those in law enforcement — and I have utmost respect for all those men and women who put on a uniform, put themselves in harm’s way, and are willing to sacrifice their lives for all of us so we can sleep safer at night with our families and children; always grateful to them.
And our elected officials, from our Sheriff, Craig Apple, to District Attorneys who work hard to enforce the laws that we and the Legislature, working together, enact. And I want to acknowledge District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly who has joined us as well — let’s give her a round of applause, and Sheriff Apple.
We have our District Attorney from Columbia County, Chris Liberati-Conant, here. Chris, I want to thank you for joining us as well; you’ve been on this journey. Chief Joe Meany from the Albany County District Attorney’s Office has joined us. The Executive Director of DAASNY, which is the Association of District Attorneys who — I think almost all 62 of them, with maybe an exception from one part of our State — joined in this effort. And the DAs in New York City, who could not join us here today, were an extraordinary part of this journey, as well as those who are involved up here in Albany County. So, I want to thank them enormously.
We also have Lindsey Crusan-Muse, the Director of Victim Crime Services from St. Peter’s Health Partners, who will give an account of what this really means to real people. We sit in our Capitol, and we debate every word of these bills, and it was contentious and it drove a later session, but I’m fine with that because we got the results we needed.
At the end of the day, though, there’s real people’s lives being affected by the system as it was, and that’s why we are so motivated to make these dramatic changes. Also my great ally, partner and advisor in keeping the people of this great State safe, and that is our Superintendent of the State Police, Steven James — let’s give him a round of applause as well. I know my partners in State government have been acknowledged, but I want to thank them again for all they do — great leaders here we have in this part of our State.
Seven months ago, I made a vow to stop dangerous criminals from walking free on minor technicalities. These stories were starting to surface, and it was maddening not just to me as the leader of the State, but also district attorneys. I would go into the offices and talk to local DAs, young people — right out of law school, some of them — excited about their careers, and then they find out after they build a case to defend the rights of a person victimized in a crime. They put their heart and soul into this, and they find out at the last minute that it’s thrown out on a technicality. The whole case they built to show society that there will be justice for victims — it’s turned upside down on its head, and there was no justice for victims.
So, my goal was to stop this — protect the rights of defendants, always paramount to us, we hold that belief strongly — but also hold offenders accountable. And also, the voiceless victims that I have stood with time and time again who feel they don’t matter after the sensation of a crime that has been committed or even a minor crime in the privacy of their home. They feel like they’ve been ignored. I want the victims to have justice. So, my friends, we fought, we won and we got it done.
That era ends today where common sense discovery reforms are now the norm. We champion them and they are to take effect today all across the great State of New York. So yes, that does deserve a round of applause. It was a long, hard fought battle.
I want to, first of all, thank the crime victims who came forward, especially the women who were victims of domestic violence. This is a cause that’s personal to me for what my mother had to witness as a child, and how she dedicated her life to being a champion and advocate to get the laws in New York changed. Even when I was an intern for the Assembly, my mother traveled here to make the case that people were not taking care of the people who were victimized time and time again in the sanctity of their home by someone who should have been there to protect and cherish and love them — who turned on them and betrayed them, and sometimes made their own homes a torture chamber in front of their children.
Those people have always mattered to me, and we’ve heard the voices of so many who just, in tears, found out that their cases had been dismissed on technicalities. They came and spoke so eloquently about what they endured, and I want to thank the advocates and the prosecutors who stood by them time and again, showed up day after day — here in our Capitol and across the State — to demand the changes, common sense changes, and together, we brought this to the forefront and worked with legislators, persuaded legislators who weren’t with us at the beginning. Some were, some were not, but we persuaded them it was finally time to rebalance the scales of justice.
And, I know, there’s a lot of passion behind the reforms that were put in place in 2019 — I understand that because this pendulum had swung too far in one direction, but it should not have swung so far in the opposite direction, and that’s the status of the laws in the State of New York up until now. And I’ll always keep fighting to protect people — my top priority. We had to fix the bail laws. Now, you’ll see there’s some headlines and papers in the State, championing how crime has gone down over the last couple years. They have. It’s been a multifaceted approach working with our cities, our police officers, Police Commissioners, a partnership formed with our State Police to deal with gun interdiction, taking guns off our streets.
Our gun violence rates are down to historic lows — could not have said that back when I first became Governor. Oh, no, no. They were frightening, and the trajectory was continuing to go upward, and upward and upward. And now to see not only has that stopped, but the trend is going downward — and part of it is we’ve done a lot. The Legislature and I worked hard on this; $2.6 billion we have allocated for law enforcement efforts since I became Governor. That’s not defunding the police, that is supercharging funding for our police officers, and I’ll always continue to do that as long as I’m Governor.
Also, changing the red flag laws — what does that mean? It means finally, there’ll be an early warning system that works when someone telegraphs they’re about to do harm to themselves or to others — whether it’s through social media posts, what they said in their school, what they’re saying to colleagues, their behavior — finally, we can stand up and protect ourselves as a society. That is working beyond all of our expectations.
And also, as I mentioned, the scourge of domestic violence. Increasing funding to support programs for victims, survivors to be able to get out of that environment like the home that my family started years ago — while my mother was alive, she ran this — a transitional home for families to come to so they can get out of an environment they feel trapped in because they don’t have the income to take care of their kids. So they stay, they endure the abuse, and finally — through our small way — we can make a difference in at least a few lives. But that is happening by incredible advocates and champions all over our state. We had to fund those programs.
We cracked down on retail theft. Remember all the articles about how no one could walk into a store without seeing everything locked up? Our laws needed to be toughened, and we got it done.
Even in New York City, all you heard about was subway crimes. Now, one crime is too many anywhere, and we’re not done, but I supported and financially supported overtime trains having two police officers on every one. That drove down crime dramatically, and I’m proud of that.
And now we’ve closed this loophole. Not just the bail laws we changed over multiple sessions that were contentious, that’s having an effect, but there’s one more issue that our district attorneys came to us and begged us to change, said, “If you could just do this, it’ll make a profound difference in the outcomes of these cases.” Otherwise, people are cycling in and out of the criminal justice system without consequences, because too many cases are being dismissed for very minor technical changes. So that loophole was undermining all these efforts.
And I’ll go back again, the 2019 reforms were well intended. But finally we’re at a case where we’re saying, “Let’s look at the record. Did we go too far? Can we fix this?” And so dismissals surged under those laws. Dismissals surged from — get this — 10,000 dismissals across the State in 2019 to almost 50,000 dismissals in 2024. Look at that. That’s 50,000 victims who did not get justice.
Now, I’m sure that there were a number of those that were justified, but for the ones that were dismissed on technicalities or minor omissions that have nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of a defendant, those are the ones that we’re getting after today. Something had to change.
So we’re here for those victims to let them know their voices have broken through. A young mother trapped in an abusive relationship, a commuter smashed into by a drunken driver, a small business owner repeatedly having their livelihood in jeopardy because retail thieves are clearing the shelves. These are the people that we’re fighting for. They’re our neighbors, our friends, our fellow citizens. And they deserve a justice system that works for them as well.
So starting tomorrow, cases will no longer be thrown out over trivial errors that have no bearing, as I said, on guilt or innocence. Criminals won’t walk free because someone hit the wrong button uploading a surveillance video. Criminals will not walk free when a police personnel file is submitted a day late or prosecutors leave out a report of which there’s already a duplicate copy of it in the file.
This is a good day, my friends. Tomorrow, we’ll finally lift the burden that’s been on our justice system to bring justice to victims. And we won’t have to lose sleep — our prosecutors won’t have to lose sleep over defense lawyers playing the “gotcha” game, waiting until the last second for challenges when they know the clock has run out. That’s over. Going forward, defense attorneys must flag any potential issue with prosecutors first. Flag the issues, that’s your job. But don’t wait until the 11th hour when you know it’s too late to do something about remedying that. Work in good faith. Make sure you do it right.
These are common sense changes; you’ll hear more from our district attorney about how they’re going to work. But now we have a focus where it matters: on the evidence, on accountability and ultimately on justice for victims.
Now, a lot of people, again, wondered why we dug in so hard on this. Why was the budget five weeks late? As an aside, a reminder, when I was an Assembly intern, the Budgets were done in July and August. I don’t support that, but five weeks to change a system that was broken, to me, was well worth it — well worth it.
And so, our Budget made this change — ultimately our end of session — because I knew this, at the end of all the legal jargon, all the chatter back and forth, all the hysteria around these changes, I knew there were real lives of New Yorkers waiting for us to do what was right by them to make sure that justice is finally delivered.
I’m proud of this. I believe this will be a dramatic change in outcomes. Respect the rights of defendants, but also know that our victims have rights as well. That’s what starts today. Thank you very much, everyone — appreciate your support.
Let me bring up not only the individual who is a local district attorney, Rensselaer County District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly, she is also the head of the entire statewide association representing district attorneys, so she speaks with a powerful voice. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome our DA.
