Why New Yorks discovery laws are ready for a redo

A generation ago, New York Democrats and Republicans essentially agreed that police were good, laws necessary, and criminal disorder unacceptable.Since then, however, the Empire State’s Democratic Party has been overtaken by ideologues who believe — despite all evidence — that criminal justice is systemically racist, all incarceration is misguided, and that investing endlessly in social services will rehabilitate all criminals. In Albany, these dominant “progressives” have passed numerous laws based on the backward idea that chipping away at the robustness, flexibility, and efficiency of the criminal justice system will somehow make us safer. But as the country tilts right, New Yorkers are getting fed up with the results of “reforms” that intentionally shifted the balance of power toward criminals and away from law and order.

Citizens are demanding more secure subways and fewer violently deranged men returned to public streets.And they are starting to connect New York’s abandonment of prosecuting low-level crimes with the city’s growing sense of danger.Now a bill introduced by state senator and mayoral hopeful Zellnor Myrie and newly elected assemblyman Micah Lasher suggests that the stranglehold that progressive ideology has had on criminal justice policy may be weakening.In an op-ed last week, preeningly progressive Myrie and the more tempered Lasher acknowledged the damage caused by New York’s far-reaching 2019 discovery “reform.” The past five years have seen a staggering 21% increase in the rate of criminal cases getting dismissed.

They even conceded that there are “fewer cases going to trial — less than one-half of 1%” as one of the “results of discovery reform.” In reality, these admissions just scratch the surface of how much our discovery law tilted the scales of justice away from crime victims and toward criminals. The 2019 law mandates that local prosecutors quickly gather a mountain of “evidence” for every case...