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Staten Island DA outlines new units, staff retention efforts, and impact of discovery laws
6:03:35
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60 sec
Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon provides an overview of how discovery funds have been used to create new units and address staff retention issues.
- Describes the creation of a body-worn camera unit with eight staff members
- Mentions the addition of discovery specialists to the office
- Discusses using funds to address attrition of assistant district attorneys
- Highlights the overall impact of discovery laws on the conduct of prosecutions and defenses in New York State
Michael McMahon
6:03:35
If I could just say, Mr.
6:03:36
Chairman, real quick, everything they said.
6:03:38
But we, just so you understand, so for instance, in our office now, we because of the the discovery laws, we have a whole body worn camera unit that's about eight people who work just in gathering the body worn camera material, collating it, curating it, and turning it over.
6:03:53
I didn't have that before.
6:03:55
We have discovery specialists that we didn't have before.
6:03:58
So they don't do what paralegals do.
6:04:00
They do something different.
6:04:02
And then we have that technology side which everyone said.
6:04:05
And then lastly, some money was used to stop the attrition of assistant district attorneys.
6:04:10
Last year, we lost a third of our assistant district attorneys because of the workload not being managed properly.
6:04:16
We've given them a little more money and the support that they needed with the money that we got from you all, and and that has stabilized somewhat.
6:04:23
So there's the, you know, there's all sides to this, but it's it's had quite a change and an impact on the way that prosecutions are conducted and defenses conducted in the state of New York.