BREAKING: Bail/Discovery proposals pass Senate: From what I heard all R's opposed + Biaggi, Ramos, Rivera, & Salazar. All other D's (inc. Felder) a yes.

My personal take (representing no one but myself), THREAD:

This is a big win for criminal justice reform advocates in NY. Ultimately, this was the best case scenario:

-We avoided the use of "dangerousness" or "risk assessments", both of which lead the way to implicit biases

The fearmongerers wanted either total repeal or wide use of judicial discretion. Neither of those happened.

For better or for worse, change was inevitable. The pressure - from both sides - was enormous. Even progressive DAs such as Gonzalez knew the laws needed tweaking

This is not a rollback. The progressive bail and discovery laws both stand. The crimes that were added to the bail law are not low level stuff. DV. Crimes against young children. Repeated violent offenses.
(If other crimes need to be moved around in the future, that can happen)

DAs offices were being overwhelmed by discovery and it wasn't big time lawyer doing the work - it was underpaid staffers. A few extra days makes a big difference.

The laws were not rolled back or repealed. Notice how Republicans all voted no - this is not what they wanted. But now we can say we made some changes that needed to be made and close this chapter and move on to other pressing issues - parole, solitary etc.

This was the best case scenario within the realm of realistic scenarios. Now let's get to work.