Will the DA’s office work to overturn previous convictions people are currently serving time for? Not meant to undermine this incredibly progressive action.
That would be a far greater thing. It's good that they're dropping open cases, and good that the city is deprioritizing marijuana offenses in general, and administratively declaring that further charges for minor possession shouldn't be filed.
It's barely scratching the surface of justice reform, however. The laws still remain on the books; they're just selectively choosing not to enforce them at the moment. More importantly, they're doing nothing to reverse the thousands (possibly millions) of prior convictions.
This is rewarding the people who skipped out on facing prosecution. It's a pragmatic move, and a tiny step in the right direction, but the people most hurt by these insane laws are the ones who did the right thing, faced their charges, and are now sitting in jail or had their lives damaged in ways small and large. They deserve relief far more than the people who managed to avoid getting convicted in the first place.
A complete miss. The Mayor and Council have been moving in the direction of ceasing to prosecute lesser crimes for several years. But more importantly the DA is an elected position. Nixon and Cuomo's drama is at the state level and pretty far removed. NYS hasn't legalized cannabis.
People are so incredibly desperate to attribute things to people who haven't really done anything. I hate Cuomo too, but I'm not going to descend into nonsense peddling in order to fight him. It only serves to undermine any actual effort of resistance to the man.
> People are so incredibly desperate to attribute things to people who haven't really done anything. I hate Cuomo too, but I'm not going to descend into nonsense peddling in order to fight him. It only serves to undermine any actual effort of resistance to the man.
The New York State political machine is incredibly corrupt and interconnected. And Cuomo himself is more powerful and influential at all levels of state government (which includes country-level positions) than any governor since, well, his father. It's really not unreasonable to suspect he had a hand in this.
maybe this is true, maybe not. But polls show he is up 40 points on her[0]. Maybe internal polling shows a different race, but not clear to me from publicly available information that he is feeling "real heat".
> maybe this is true, maybe not. But polls show he is up 40 points on her[0]. Maybe internal polling shows a different race, but not clear to me from publicly available information that he is feeling "real heat".
He's trying to run up the score to make it look like he has a mandate. If Nixon gets anything close to what Teachout got four years ago, it'll look bad for his 2020 presidential run.
I do agree. But every day, decisions are made that result in no prosecution of charges against "guilty" people, while others may be in prison serving sentences for the same offense. We don't vacate convictions just because there's an example of another person who was charged but not prosecuted for the same thing.
In this case, where the DA has made a blanket pronouncement that the office is not going to prosecute minor drug possession charges, I think there is a stronger argument to apply that retroactively. It seems to me like the right thing to do. But that would need to be done by a judge or perhaps the governor, not the DA. And you'd have to look at each case. There are really very few people serving significant time for simple possession. There's usually large quantities, intent to distribute, weapons or violence, prior offenses, or some other aggravating factors.
