Ezekiel Edwards

If arrested in the Bronx, get ready to wait

As an anecdote to my last entry on the Charge or Release Bill:

I worked an arraignment shift this past Sunday evening in the Bronx from 4 p.m. until 1 a.m. According to court personnel, there were approximately 340 people "in the system" when I arrived. In other words, there were 340 people that had been arrested over the past few days who had yet to be arraigned. As is often the case, my colleagues and I were unable to interview the vast majority of these people, as they had not yet been brought to the cells adjacent to the court room (in part because these cells are quite small, and could not possibly accommodate even one-quarter of the number of people in the system). Some of the arrestees were being held in other cells in the criminal court building, while the majority, I presume, were being "lodged" at various precincts and other holding facilities in the Bronx and beyond --- all waiting to be brought to court.

I interviewed around 25 people that night, all charged with misdemeanor offenses, such as hopping the turnstile, trespass, possession of a controlled substance, and driving while intoxicated. By the time I had spoken to them, let alone represented them in court, not one of them had been in jail less than 24 hours. Quite the contrary. The person incarcerated for the least number of hours before his arraignment had been arrested 32 hours prior. The overwhelming majority had been in jail for between 42 and 48 hours.

In terms of the number of hours people in the Bronx are held prior to being charged officially, last night was the norm, not the exception. The Court of Appeals held that people must be arraigned within 24 hours barring a reasonable explanation. Had anyone demanded a reasonable explanation on Sunday night, the only one I would have anticipated was that there were simply too many people arrested since Friday evening to arraign anyone within 24 hours. This raises the issue of detaining so many low-level misdemeanor offenders. As a commentator to my last entry astutely observed, for these petty misdemeanors, the police could just as easily issue a Desk Appearance Ticket (DAT) --- instructing a person to come to court, on his or her own volition, at a later date, obviating the need to detain the person for hours before eventually taking them to arraignments --- thereby greatly reducing the number of people in detention, and consequently truncating the arrest-to-arraignment time. Although the police do hand out a bevy of DATs, they could stand to serve up more in lieu of detaining people charged with low-level, non-violent offenses.

If people were consistently being arraigned at 22, 23, or right at 24 hours, as opposed to earlier, it would still be an issue of great concern; however, the situation is much worse, as hardly anyone is being arraigned within, or even close to, 24 hours after their arrest. Last night, like countless days and nights before it, demonstrates starkly the need for the reintroduction and passage of the Charge or Release Bill to ensure that people are arraigned expeditiously, as New York's highest court has ordered.

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Posted at 7:00 AM, Feb 07, 2006 in Criminal Justice
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