NEW YORK—Under New York’s new criminal-justice law, defendants charged with certain hate crimes must be released without bail.
This has Jewish people questioning their safety in light of the recent spate in anti-Semitic hate crimes. The police commissioner confirmed to them and other New Yorkers on Jan. 2 that the “law can be tweaked.”
“But we need to give judges discretion.” said Commissioner Dermot Shea at the town hall at Mount Sinai Jewish Center. “For when there’s somebody in front of them that is posing a danger to the community, to have common-sense standards, to say, ‘you know what? … it would be better for the community, for them to be in jail.”
In New York, judges can’t base their release decision on the potential dangerousness of the defendant. Officials have argued, however, that judges need this ability to stop a revolving door in the criminal justice system under the new law.
As an example, last week, a 30-year-old woman allegedly slapped three Jewish women in Crown Heights while making anti-semitic remarks, according to the New York Post. She was released without cash bail in advance of the new law. In a span of a few days, she was then arrested and released multiple times on similar charges.
Assessing Danger
Mayor Bill de Blasio has also taken issue with the reform, and has urged state legislature to make changes.
“But, I’m still concerned about those who are accused of much more serious crimes and violent crimes,” said the mayor at a media briefing in June, according to a transcript obtained by NTD News from the mayor’s press office. “I still believe before this legislature leaves session, they need to take one more step, which is to allow our judges, particularly in the cases of the most violent and serious crimes have the ability to assess the dangerousness of the suspect.”
But even if this is changed, a few town hall attendees said anti-Semitism will continue if Democrats don’t condemn the anti-Semitism in their party. The town hall was hosted by Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY).
“If they would loudly speak out against the anti-semites in their own party, that would go along way to saying that it’s not okay,” said Daniel Wiseman, a New Yorker and town hall attendee.
Another said, “when you have it right at the top, in Congress, it leaks down and people feel, ‘well, they got away with it, we can get away with it.”
Both were referring to Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
Omar has used anti-semitic tropes on Twitter. She did apologize for one of her tweets after being rebuked by the Democrats. However, they refused to name her in a resolution condemning anti-Semitism after she made further anti-Semitic remarks.
She and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib also support BDS, an anti-Israel movement known to lead to the harassment and intimidation of Jews, according to the AMCHA Initiative (pdf).
Correction: A previous version of this story had an error on the outcome of New York’s bail reform. Before bail reform, New York judges could not base their release decisions on the dangerousness of the defendant.
