QUESTION
Council Member Vickie Paladino's Inquiry on the Release of Guilty Individuals Due to Insufficient Evidence
1:19:12
·
7 min
Council Member Vickie Paladino questions the rationale behind releasing individuals who may indeed be guilty due to insufficient evidence, as influenced by discovery laws. She seeks to understand how the NYPD coordinates with the district attorney's office during this process, especially in cases where additional evidence might be required for prosecution but isn't available, leading to a decline in prosecuting the case. Paladino also requests updates on law enforcement's efforts in case resolutions and preventing such scenarios, with emphasis on statistics related to the clearance rates for homicides and non-fatal shootings in 2023.
Vickie Paladino
1:19:12
I especially wanna thank Joseph Kenny, the chief of detectives the New York City police department and all of you gentlemen sitting here at the day is once again completely and ultimately prepared.
1:19:27
For what was going to be placed in front of you.
1:19:30
And I thank you.
1:19:32
Because once again, you've come on to scrutiny.
1:19:35
Again, The year is 2024.
1:19:38
It's not 1980.
1:19:39
You've made that very clear.
1:19:41
You've come a very long way.
1:19:43
Our department has come an extremely long way.
1:19:46
We're no longer dealing with paper.
1:19:49
We are dealing with electronic filings and everything on a spreadsheet.
1:19:53
You guys know your job.
1:19:55
Now, my question lies within, you know, what about those that are wrong and fully released?
1:20:03
That are guilty because we don't have enough evidence.
1:20:07
What happens to those people?
1:20:09
I also have another question about How are we dealing with the loss of our police department that you guys have suffered a great loss, a tremendous loss over 2000 in the year 2023.
1:20:23
I also want to be clear, and I just want to reiterate what what Joseph Kennedy has said.
1:20:31
Kenny has said, to be clear, even one wrongful conviction is too many.
1:20:39
It's a sickening reality when we do find out that someone has been wrongfully convicted.
1:20:45
However, I think in the year 2024, we have reduced that by a great number.
1:20:51
And if you could supply that with the then and the now and our figures would be helpful to us as well.
1:20:57
Do you understand?
1:20:58
Are you able to do that?
Yusef Salaam
1:20:59
Can I can I ask a a question as well?
1:21:03
The council member said wrongfully released, and I just wanted to get some clarity on what that means.
1:21:09
Because I know wrongful convictions, it's something where a person actually
Vickie Paladino
1:21:13
is a duty.
1:21:13
There's a lot of people who are brought in that are guilty and are released because there's not enough evidence to hold them due to the discovery laws.
1:21:25
So I'm just curious, you know, there I've been a great many wrongfully convicted but there's also been a lot of people who have been released, and they are indeed guilty.
1:21:36
So I just wanna know how
Yusef Salaam
1:21:38
So not not that they've been adjudicated.
Vickie Paladino
1:21:41
I just I'm I'm asking them.
Yusef Salaam
1:21:42
Oh, no.
1:21:42
I was asking for clarity because
Vickie Paladino
1:21:44
I just
Yusef Salaam
1:21:44
When I heard the word wrong for
Vickie Paladino
1:21:46
you, please.
Yusef Salaam
1:21:47
I was always
Vickie Paladino
1:21:48
And they
Yusef Salaam
1:21:48
I was not yeah.
1:21:49
It wasn't clear.
Vickie Paladino
1:21:50
Let let's who's sitting in front of us.
1:21:53
Clarify that for
Tiffany Cabán
1:21:54
me, please.
Yusef Salaam
1:21:54
So let me let me maybe I can direct this to you all as well because if this is actually something that happened Yes.
1:21:59
That people are wrongfully released.
1:22:03
I'm wondering what that means because I I I know wrongfully convicted as you've been adjudicated, you went to prison, something happened, and they found out, damn, we did we we got the wrong person.
1:22:15
Where it's wrongfully released is kind of a little bit unclear to me because I'm thinking about College Browser as an example, you know, goes to prison is waiting years go by, he then is released, and then, you know, a document that he's made for him to really talk about the issues, but he ultimately takes his own life because he couldn't turn the trauma off.
1:22:38
I just was, you know, in terms of clarity, is there such things as wrongfully released
Joseph Kenny
1:22:43
What what we see is is is quite often what will happen during the course of an investigation.
1:22:48
We we will make an arrest.
1:22:49
The police department will feel that we have enough probable cause based on the the evidence that we put together.
1:22:54
Right?
1:22:54
Evidence based prosecution along with other things using technology, using, for instance, we will make the arrest.
1:23:01
There are instances where we will present the facts of the case to the district attorney's office who will then maybe perhaps require 1 or 2 more things and would decline the process execute the case or defer the case, and then that person would be released.
1:23:17
We work with the district attorney's office on high profile cases.
1:23:22
We usually coordinate with them to decide the threshold of probable cause.
1:23:28
We usually don't make an arrest without their assistance or their coordination with us.
1:23:34
But in cases where where they could be some discovery issues where a decline of prosecute will be made by the district attorney's office.
Vickie Paladino
1:23:49
Is is it a right chair?
Tiffany Cabán
1:23:50
Yes.
1:23:50
And I just wanted to I just wanted to
Vickie Paladino
1:23:52
ask you.
1:23:53
Hold on a minute.
1:23:54
Hold on a minute.
1:23:56
Hold on.
1:23:59
Reset my clock, make sure I'm at the proper time, and no one could talk over me.
1:24:04
I won't allow it.
1:24:05
This has happened again and again and again.
1:24:08
Stop.
1:24:10
I have questions here.
1:24:12
And I have a police department sitting in front of me that is incredibly credible and prepared for today.
1:24:22
So while they are once again undergoing what I consider being cross examined, You guys have brought us brought us very much up to date.
1:24:32
The year is 2024.
1:24:35
I don't wanna hear about the 19 eighties.
1:24:38
I don't wanna hear about 2015.
1:24:41
I wanna know present day how hard you've been working.
1:24:46
And what you what you guys are doing to prevent this from ever happening again.
1:24:53
And you've laid it out very, very nice So if you could please supply me and the panel here with what we have today and what we have in how many unsolved cases do we have?
Joseph Kenny
1:25:14
For the number of cases, I can just speak for for homicides last year, we we had a clearance rate of 70% of our homicides in 2023.
1:25:23
We had a 47% clearance rate in our nonfatal shootings, which was the highest clearance rate since we've been keeping track of that that data.
1:25:31
So we are closing our cases.
1:25:35
We're positive results.
1:25:37
Many, many, okay.
1:25:38
More and more often than not.
Vickie Paladino
1:25:40
Very good.
1:25:41
Okay.
1:25:42
Like I said, thank you very much.
1:25:45
I got thrown totally off track here, but that's alright.
1:25:49
We know the kind of job you're doing.
1:25:51
We appreciate your hard work, and you can't get anymore.
1:25:56
Explicit than what you laid out here for us today and what you laid out for the public here today.
1:26:02
And I don't think we're gonna see very many more wrongfully convicted because of the evidence is because of the way you pursue it.
1:26:10
One thing I would like to say, if we could go back to the lineups and in person, the sooner the better, that certainly does help.
1:26:17
And that's all I have to say.
1:26:19
Thank you very much.