TESTIMONY
Jacqueline Gosdigian, Senior Policy Counsel with Brooklyn Defender Service, on NYPD's impact on wrongful convictions
1:43:46
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3 min
Jacqueline Gosdigian, Senior Policy Counsel provides detailed testimony on the negative impact of NYPD practices on wrongful convictions
Gosdigian criticizes the NYPD for their handling of discovery, evidence, forensic science, and racial profiling, and highlights the department's partnership with companies like Microsoft and IBM for data storage but notes significant delays and lack of transparency in turnover discovery. The testimony also mentions a court case where NYPD's refusal to turn over discovery was likened to holding it ransom and calls for the council to investigate these issues further. Gosdigian emphasizes the serious implications of inaccurate forensic analysis, citing scandals and pushing for audits of certain labs. The testimony concludes with a call to work with the council to prevent wrongful convictions and invest in communities rather than policing.
Jackie Gustigan
1:43:46
My name is Jackie Gustigan.
1:43:48
I am supervising Paul Council with Brooklyn Defender Services.
1:43:51
I've been a public defender for over 15 years, and I wanna thank the council and chair Llam.
1:43:57
It's an honor to be before you, and we look forward to working with you and the rest of the council.
1:44:02
As public defenders, we see every day how New York, the NYPD's practices do not appropriately protect New Yorkers from wrongful conviction.
1:44:11
In our written testimony, we highlight many concerns about NYPD policies as they relate to evidence, forensic science, interrogation, racial profiling.
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However, in my limited time, I will highlight a few key points.
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Timely access to discovery is critical in preventing wrongful convictions.
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Much of the information for discovery comes from law enforcement.
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And New York enacted comprehensive discovery reforms in 2019.
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However, even though NYPD has spent 1,000,000 of dollars.
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On document and case management systems, data collection, and storage products, and partnered with companies like Microsoft and IBM, to build system to share collected data, including police reports, body worn camera, videos, and other digitally collected evidence.
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Turnover discovery continues to be inexcusably delayed.
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You heard NYPD say that everything is electronic and that DA days have access, but then when questioned further by council member, Kevan, they admitted that, in fact, DAs do not have direct access to their finest system.
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It's simply not true.
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I wanna point to a recent court decision for the Bronx in September of last year.
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The court in that case characterized NYPD's refusal to turn over discovery to DAs as akin to NYPD holding discovery as ransom.
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And the judge said that the d that NYPD is requiring DAs to, quote, jump through a series of NY PD crafted hoops to receive discovery.
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That is what's really going on.
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NYPD data systems are designed to make the collection and sharing of information quick, straightforward and simple, and yet NYPD's fundamental lack of transparency and failure to turn over to their records to district attorneys continues to prevent someone accused of a crime from seeing their evidence.
1:45:55
We call on the city council to investigate NYPD's lack of transparency and delays in providing acts assess to records, documents, data, and video content.
1:46:03
And I'll sum up after this last point.
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Arris and forensic analysis are one of the leading actors and wrongful convictions.
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You heard council member counsel member Khan talk about the late in print scandal from 2015.
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Additionally, there was a serious scandal involving OCME where a supervisor conducted the analysis for 2 junior analysts on a large number of DNA cases.
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He did the actual work and then signed off for the junior analyst setting this up for a process where everyone involved would have in fact been purging themselves.
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We call in the council to demand a full scale audit of the Layton Fingerprint Lab and of the OCME Similarly, in Houston and DC, this full scale independent investigation was done.
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We believe that the time for New York to do something similar.
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And I'll end by just saying that we look forward to the the opportunity to continue to work with the council to prevent wrongful convictions to ensure that those wrapped up in the criminal legal system have free access to Zelis representation and to invest in our communities instead of police them.
1:47:13
Thank you very much.
