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Brooklyn DA explains impact of court system underfunding on case resolution
6:16:27
ยท
113 sec
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez discusses how underfunding of the court system affects case resolution and contributes to delays:
- Lack of available judges hinders case dispositions and forces resolutions
- Shortage of court officers, stenographers, and judges in the county
- High-stakes nature of cases for all parties involved
- Delay often benefits the defense in hopes of case dismissal or witness unavailability
- Brooklyn faces a 15% year-over-year increase in new arrests without corresponding investment in courts
Eric Gonzalez
6:16:27
I would say in Brooklyn, there are a lot of reasons for court delay, but the underfunding of the court system plays a tremendous piece of that.
6:16:39
The ability for a case to resolve itself, a disposition to be reached on an incarcerated person, really depends on the availability of a judge.
6:16:50
It does not require a judge to try the case.
6:16:53
It requires a judge to be available to hear the matter and then force both sides either into a trial or into a disposition.
6:17:03
Not having enough court officers, stenographers, judges in the county has played a tremendous part of the delays because, quite frankly, these are high stakes for everyone, high stakes for the accused and whether or not to accept a plea offer or to go to trial for the prosecutor to have that moment in clarity and time with a victim or survivor of crime.
6:17:27
This is what's on the table.
6:17:29
What do we wanna do here?
6:17:31
But without the availability of judges each and every day to make those cases and and force those cases to a resolution, you know, things get delayed because it's never, you know, honestly, especially in high stakes cases where they're looking no one's getting out of jail that day.
6:17:49
You take a disposition, may get out in five years from now or ten years from now.
6:17:54
Delay tends to work to the benefit of the defense.
6:18:01
And so because maybe the case will be dismissed or a witness will not come back.
6:18:06
So we we that's beyond the city council, but I believe that that continues to play a tremendous role in the delays and I've already mentioned the backlog.
6:18:19
Yeah.
6:18:19
Clark is saying Right.