Justice Kamins has a new article in the New York Law Journal summarizing recently enacted legislation concerning the criminal justice system.
Among the new laws:
- a prohibition on large city police departments from keeping an electronic database of stops
- Leandra's Law, which make DWI an E Felony if a child under 16 was present in the car and requires an ignition interlock for every person convicted of DWI
- creation of a Statewide Office of Indigent Services, which will study and make recommendations for improving indigent defense
- creation of a new crime, Strangulation
- assaults on nurses or sanitation enforcement agents are now Class C felonies
- there is now a statutory right to "one phone call" (anywhere in the U.S. or Puerto Rico!) upon arrest
- probation reports are no longer required in misdemeanor cases where the judge does not impose more than 180 days (the previous limit was 90 days)
- VTL blood draws no longer require physician supervision
- unconstitutional provisions of the Loitering statute have now been removed
- OAG now has jurisdiction prosecute, criminally, Unauthorized Practice of Law
Take a look at Justice Kamins' well written article for more on these and other new laws. (LC)
