Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Juval Scott, Executive Director of The Bronx Defenders, on Public Defender Funding
8:33:40
ยท
3 min
Juval Scott, Executive Director of The Bronx Defenders, testified on the critical need for increased funding for public defenders in New York City. She emphasized the importance of public defenders in ensuring fair treatment of individuals in the criminal justice system and highlighted the disparity in pay between city public defenders and their federal counterparts.
- Scott argued for a 25% increase in funding to address burnout and attrition in public defender offices.
- She stressed that public defenders provide a constitutionally mandated service but are not adequately recognized or compensated.
- Scott suggested New York City should commit to paying public defenders at least as much as prosecutors, similar to the federal system.
Juval Scott
8:33:40
Hi, good evening.
8:33:41
I'm Juvelle Scott.
8:33:42
I'm the executive director of the Bronx Defenders.
8:33:45
I began as the executive director for the Bronx Defenders about six months ago.
8:33:50
I started there after a two decade career in the federal public defender system, and so I have spent the last two decades really working towards making sure that the promise enshrined in Gideon's Gideon versus Wainwright come to came to fruition.
8:34:09
I was heartened to hear the prosecutors say that they, you know, want a system that is fair and one that looks at people as individuals.
8:34:18
That's precisely what public defenders do.
8:34:21
We tell the stories of the people who find themselves entangled in the system, in in the criminal legal system or other systems, and we make sure that each of those people is seen as an individual and not merely a cog in the wheel.
8:34:38
That they that the system is not one where people who find themselves, you know, in in in courts across the city are treated as though they are similar or exactly the same as people who are standing next to them.
8:34:53
The reason why this is important is because those people like myself who spend decades in public defense, people who want to be public defenders, we do so knowing that we could go and have far more lucrative careers in big law and corporations, but we don't because the work that we're able to do to serve the community is sustaining for us.
8:35:16
But what is different in New York City than the federal system is the way that public defenders are paid, and I think it boils down in some ways to the fact that public defenders, even in this in this process here, are not even seen in the role that as important as they are.
8:35:34
We are constitutionally mandated service.
8:35:37
We are a service that is provided in accordance with, you know, in in accordance with the constitution.
8:35:44
But here today, we were given two minutes to respond to a very big issue, and I'll wrap this up very briefly, which is we need more money.
8:35:52
Public defenders are sustaining large rates of burnout because we live in one of the in the world's most expensive cities, but the pay has not kept pace.
8:36:03
And it's very different.
8:36:04
There are public defenders right here in the city, in the federal defender system, who make more money, and it's in part because the federal government has decided that they will not allow public defenders to be paid less than their counterparts on the other side of the aisle, that public defenders in the federal system will make at least as much as the prosecutors that they have cases against.
8:36:30
New York City could make that same commitment to public defenders, if not more.
8:36:34
It's not a perfect model because prosecutors get other benefits, pensions, things of that nature that we would never get, but at a minimum we could do that.
8:36:42
It would stem a burnout, It would allow us to, like, stem the tide of attrition that happens in public defenders in public defender offices, and it would allow us to serve the community and the clients that rely on our services.
8:36:58
And so I'm asking you, the council, to make sure that we're properly funded to provide that 25% increase so that people who want to be public defenders in one of the most expensive cities in this country have the opportunity to do so and will stay.