Progressive groups float a platform for Manhattan DA that would cut budget, prosecutions
As the Manhattan district attorney’s race heats up, criminal justice reform and left-leaning groups are spelling out what they want in a new top prosecutor — asking candidates to significantly curtail the reach and budget of the office they are trying to win.
In a new policy platform, about 20 organizations are pushing for a Manhattan district attorney who will slash the DA’s budget in half, decline to prosecute many cases, seek shorter prison sentences and a chance for release for people already locked up.
New York City’s ascendant left has pushed to vastly diminish the role of law enforcement and incarceration — views that that propelled the candidacy of Tiffany Cabán to nearly defeating Melinda Katz in the Queens DA primary last year, and which have only grown more pronounced since this summer’s protests over the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Nine candidates have so far jumped into the race to replace current DA Cy Vance, who hasn’t said whether he will run for reelection. Most are running broadly as reformers and say they would reduce incarceration, but no candidate has emerged as the clear favorite of the criminal justice reform movement.
“This is what a progressive DA does,” said Jared Trujillo, president of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, one of the groups backing the platform. “The field is starting to separate as to who is actually progressive, and who just knows a few talking points.”
The proposals are backed by groups including the Working Families Party, Color of Change, Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, Center for Community Alternatives, Sunrise Movement NYC, New York Communities for Change and others. Some plan to make endorsements in the race.
“The District Attorney should be focused on reducing the size, scope and resources of the office,” the platform says, asking candidates to support a 50 percent reduction in the DA’s $169 million budget and for the office to relinquish its control over asset forfeiture funds.
The groups are asking candidates to commit to not prosecuting both sex workers and their clients, people who are caught in police stings like drug “buy and busts,” and alleged gang members accused of conspiracy charges. They say that each candidate should release a plan detailing which cases they will dismiss outright if elected.
They say that prosecutors should seek the minimum prison sentence, including for violent crimes, and refrain from asking for life sentences.
The platform also calls for the DA to reduce the number of people locked up before trial by 80 percent, and to support prisoners applying to be released on parole.
And the organizations say the DA should refuse to prosecute cases that rely on the word of police officers with a substantiated history of false testimony, or where the sole witness is a New York Police Department officer.
Contenders for the Manhattan DA’s seat include Alvin Bragg, Tali Farhadian Weinstein, Lucy Lang, Diana Florence, Tahanie Aboushi, Janos Marton, Dan Quart, Eliza Orlins, and Liz Crotty.
Several candidates have gone after Vance for what they see as a pattern of going easy on the rich and powerful — including Harvey Weinstein, whom he initially declined to charge before eventually convicting him this year, as well as the children of Donald Trump.
But Nick Encalada-Malinowski, the civil rights campaign director at VOCAL-NY, another group supporting the platform, said those high-profile cases are “not largely relevant to the day-to-day operations of the Manhattan DA office.”
“The people most likely to be prosecuted by future Manhattan district attorneys — low-income people of color — as well as people organizing locally against the most harmful aspects of this system will have a say on what issues are important,” he said.
The groups plan to send the platform to all the candidates and publish their responses online. They are planning to host a candidate forum in January.