Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday blamed the city’s high crime rate on courts across the five boroughs, in the process revealing that they have rendered just 18 criminal verdicts in the first half of this year.
The astoundingly low number compared to 405 during the same pre-pandemic period in 2019.
“Whether it’s something as horrible as a murder or gun violence, you need a culture of consequences,” de Blasio said Monday at his daily remote press briefing from City Hall.
“The court system not functioning is having a bigger impact than almost any other factor right now. The absence of those consequences for a whole variety of crimes is undermining public safety,” he said.
The city’s crime outlook is bleak. Shootings remain up 5.3 percent compared to this time last year. Murders are close to last year’s numbers — 299 compared to 303 at this time in 2020 — and those figures are an almost 40 percent spike from 2019. Felony assaults have also increased by 5 percent.
De Blasio said he’s offered to help bring the court system back from the pandemic by providing more space, vaccines and other measures — but court officials have refused the aid.
Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration, pushed back on the mayor’s indictment of the judicial branch — and then cast the blame on yet another element of the criminal justice system.
“His gaslighting rhetoric regarding court operations in an attempt to shift the public safety discussion continues,” Chalfen said.
“The court system has been back at full strength — with all judges and staff fully back in person in the courthouses since May. Trials are being held, but for cases to be tried, you need the prosecution and defense to have their cases prepared, which isn’t occurring in a number of counties.”
Still, despite blaming district attorneys for a good share of the slowdown, Chalfen admitted that OCA is limiting the number of trials to three at any given time in each county to allow for social distancing. For example, at least two courtrooms are occupied per trial — one as the trial court and another as the jury room.
Before the pandemic, there was no limit on the number of trials that could happen simultaneously and Brooklyn Supreme Court often hosted up to 12 at a time, a source said.
But those limits alone don’t account for the massive drop in verdicts from 405 in the first half of 2019 to just 18 during the first part of this year.
Last summer, de Blasio and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo blamed each other for the city’s crime rise, with the mayor pointing the finger at the court system that’s controlled by the state.
In July 2020, Cuomo attributed the “devastating” crime wave sweeping the Big Apple to anti-cop sentiment and de Blasio’s decision to release inmates from Rikers Island during the pandemic.
“In terms of overall violence in New York City: I understand what the mayor said about the courts. The courts have a different opinion and they responded to the mayor. I do believe there are a number of factors that are at play,” Cuomo said at the time.
Earlier that month, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, who was appointed by Cuomo, rebuked de Blasio for claiming closed courts caused a surge in shootings.
De Blasio acknowledged he hasn’t addressed the issue with Gov. Kathy Hochul yet since she took office just last week, although he plans to discuss it with her soon.
Several groups representing defendants rejected Chalfen’s claim that they’re not prepared for trial. Reps for district attorneys either declined to comment or didn’t respond to queries.
“I dispute the fact that we are not working on our cases, that’s not true, we are,” said Yung-Mi Lee, legal director at Brooklyn Defender Services.
Instead, she said, “it’s hard to conduct jury trials because it’s simply not safe.”
“Because of the pandemic, it’s extremely difficult to bring in jurors and to maintain social distancing.”
Lori Zeno, executive director of Queens Defenders, agreed.
“The first reason why the courts had to have a slowdown is because the court buildings were unsafe, I guess that’s another convenient fact OCA is forgetting. They didn’t have proper ventilation and therefore anybody who walked into the courthouses were in danger of getting COVID.”
Zeno applauded OCA for implementing new safety measures including a vaccine requirement for court employees, but she said it was “appalling” that court officials tried to blame the slowdown on prosecutors and defense attorneys because they don’t set the trial calendar.
Tina Luongo, lead criminal defense attorney for the Legal Aid Society, said the mayor’s blame is also misplaced.
“To blame the courts on the reported increase in crime is absurd and without any evidence,” Luongo said.
“Public defenders have been representing clients throughout this entire time and working around the clock to provide our clients the due process they deserve and the Constitution guarantees,” Luongo said.
Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy