B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul and Hudson Valley Law Enforcement Officials Call for Essential Changes to New York’s Discovery Laws

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul stood with Hudson Valley law enforcement officials and elected leaders to call for essential changes to New York's discovery laws. The Governor’s visit comes as she doubles down on her pledge not to approve a State Budget that fails to include key public safety measures.

B-ROLL of the Governor joining Hudson Valley law enforcement officials for a roundtable discussion is available to stream on Youtube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor’s remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:

 Good morning, everyone. I just wrapped up a meeting with the individuals you see here, people that are not unfamiliar to you, and I want to thank, first of all, our Sheriff, Figueroa, who I've known for many, many years for welcoming us here today and sharing his thoughts with me, and Manny Nneji, our district attorney — doing a great job and gave me some of the insights into the challenges that he and his team are facing: the volume of work, the number of hours that his staff are putting in and just the frustration with the current laws as they stand.

I also want to thank Bea Hanson, our Director of Office of Victim Services, who you’ll be hearing from shortly as well, to tell you from the victim's point of view why the fight we're in is so incredibly important.

These individuals dedicate their lives to keeping New Yorkers safe, and unfortunately, too often, their efforts are being undermined by loopholes in our laws as written. Over and over again, they meticulously investigate crimes, they make arrests, they turn over vast amounts of evidence often to only have charges thrown out and the defendants walk free over minor technicalities. This isn't just demoralizing for law enforcement, it's traumatizing for the victims — those whose suffering is just compounded by inexplicably denied justice.

This has to end. That's why I will continue to refuse to sign onto any budget deal that does not include a way to fix these fatal flaws in our laws and to just put us on the right track again. And let me explain how we arrived at this crisis point. In 2019, there was a major effort to reform our discovery laws. The intentions were good. It was important to step up at the time and recognize that the system was totally skewed toward the sides of the prosecution –- that there were defendants left languishing in jails waiting for so long to finally have their cases brought; that in itself was an injustice.

And I want to make sure that the changes we're talking about here, we're not trying to undo those — we're trying to acknowledge that there have been problems created that end up in too many dismissals; narrowing down our focus and the changes we're talking about. The changes that happened then ensured that piles of evidence are just not dropped on district attorneys on the eve of the trial, and that no one languishes waiting for their day in the court — that was what was behind those, because anyone charged with a crime does deserve to know their evidence against them and certainly deserves a speedy trial. That's important to all of us; it's a New York value, we can all agree on that.

Like I said, the pendulum has swung too far and the unintended consequences, for victims particularly, have been devastating. And right now, it doesn't just require the prosecutors to turn over relevant evidence — anything remotely related to the case must also be turned over. Now, think about that. That doesn't happen — you turn over something even remotely related to the case, the entire case, no matter how strong it is, no matter how much work went into it, how convincing it is — the entire case can be thrown out; and that's regardless of the weight of the evidence, it's regardless of the severity of the crime.

And this broad standard has become a procedural minefield. So prosecutors can easily miss some random detail that has no impact on the defense or submit something a day late because they're waiting for some document to be created, and guess what happens? A violent criminal can walk free. And for these reasons, dismissals in our State statewide have jumped from about 10,000 dismissals in 2019 to almost 50,000 in 2024. The only difference: the change in the laws.

Think about all those people. Every one of them has a victim. Someone who walks out of court and says, “What happened? I thought we were going to go to court. I thought I was finally going to get justice,” and they walk out the door but so does the accused — they walk out without consequences. So this extraordinary uptick cuts across every criminal category from drunk driving to domestic abuse cases — 94 percent of domestic abuse cases are dismissed all the way up to attempted murder.

In one case, this is really heartbreaking, a man was charged with attempted murder of a teenage boy. And prosecutors had thought they submitted all the police body cam videos. It turned out there was one clip inadvertently left out. What was on this piece of evidence? It was the EMTs wheeling the boy out on a stretcher.

That's all that was missing. Everything else was built. It was a strong case. Certainly that would not be considered case-altering footage. It was not harmful to the defense. Everyone knew this person was injured and went to the hospital. But because of this minor oversight, guess what happened? The entire case was dismissed. Today, that boy is still sitting in a hospital, badly disabled. Meanwhile, the man who put him there walked out free.

And another case, a serial drunk driver was charged with crashing his motorcycle into someone else while he was under the influence. But the case, in that one, the case was dismissed because one of the arresting officers had once accidentally hit a garbage can with his patrol car, and that wasn't turned over in time — and that happened six years before the arrest. I'm not making this up; because the prosecutors didn't think to disclose this irrelevant detail, that drunk driver is back driving on our roads. We don't want this anymore. We don't want this. Unrepentant criminals making a mockery of our justice system.

So listen, I don't just make record investments in law enforcement — I really have, I've put a lot of money into our DA's offices understanding the challenges, the burden they're weighing under; I think over $200 million. We have been doing an extraordinary job with trying to help on the financial side, but it's just a shame to see all this solid police work go to waste or watch people walk free. And all I'm asking for is support from the legislature for common sense reforms that hold criminals accountable and keep our communities safe, but also give defendants their due. We're not taking that away.

My intent is to uphold the original premise behind the reforms back in 2019. But we also want to prevent entire cases from being dismissed if a discovery error is not harmful to the defense. So our Budget negotiations have stretched out — you’ve heard all about it. I refuse to back down.

I know there's thousands of people across the State who are accounting me to hold strong on this, and fortunately, we passed Budget extenders. There's no money. It's not in Washington where everything shuts down. Everything's still fine. You didn't notice it, right? And I've yet to hear anyone come up to me — and I go to grocery stores, I go to diners — not one person has ever come up to me and said, “Oh my God, Governor. The Budget's late.” Right?

They say, “Thanks for fighting for us. Thanks for standing up. Thanks for doing what you're doing.” And I know there's a lot of people who appreciate it. I may never see them personally, but they want someone who's willing to stand up and say, “That is wrong, we must fix it,” and I'm not changing, I'm not signing the Budget until we get it done.

And so, we’ll get that done. In addition to that public safety initiative, on top of the bail reforms we've had over the last few years and our laws against retail theft and closing down illegal cannabis shops — we've done a lot, but every one of them had to be done in the Budget because the legislature was not doing it on their own. But I'm also trying to focus on affordability while I’m at it. You all know, I don't need to tell you. Word of caution: do not go out looking for eggs before Easter. Your jaw will drop at how expensive everything has become.

You know, inflation has been so hard on New Yorkers, and now we have the tariffs and the impact of that and the uncertainty with 401(k)s — everybody's head's just spinning, but I want to work hard for you by putting more money back in your pockets and I have a plan — it's in the Budget. And I have a middle-class tax cut I want to get enacted.

I want to have a inflation refund to put more money back in pop people's pockets. If you have little children, helping you with the cost. I’m a grandma, I'm a mom. I know how expensive it is when the kids are little; put a thousand dollars back in the pockets of people with little kids; free school lunches and breakfasts.

I mean, this is going to save money for parents. So we're going to go do this. And I've calculated, it’ll put about $5,000 back in New Yorker's pockets. You know why we need to do that soon? Because they're saying that the cost of the tariffs are going to result in about three to $6,000 coming out of your pockets — everything costing more.

So I want to get back. I want to go up to Albany; I'm heading up there; I want to get this done, over the finish line, but we're going to get the discovery reforms done as well. So, we can all agree on this? Are you with me on this? Does this make a lot of sense? And so I need to get up there, you need to support this so we can finish the job and spread the word about what we're fighting for: call your representatives, let them know that this is common sense — the Governor's got a plan: it's not to roll back the reforms that were so important for our justice system because I believe in this, but also to say “It's gone too far.”

Let's find that place where we can finally all agree — this is finally justice in New York. So, no more throwing out these cases, no more making victims walk out sometimes in tears. I heard stories of victims of domestic violence in New York City yesterday, and they just walked out and said, “I came up here. I bared my soul. I told everything about something horrible that happened to me, and I go to the police officer, and I have to repeat the story again for district attorneys and I have to wait for months. I have to find all this information, — receipts and phone logs — and I finally do all this, and my abuser walks out. I don't have an order of protection anymore. I'm vulnerable. My kids and I are scared.”

I mean, my friends, this is New York. We can't let this happen anymore. These people need our help. Let's get this done. Thank you very much. Thank you.

With that, I'd like to call up and get some reflections from our great sheriff, Juan Figueroa, who's going to tell us the impact these laws are having on the sheriff's office. Thank you, Sheriff.