South Brooklyn DSA

NIGHT ARRAIGNMENTS tonight. I am working the felony part where I should be arraigning serious cases. Instead so far all that has come through are open container cases, farebeats & marijuana cases. The things no one should be arrested for & @BrooklynDA says he doesn’t prosecute.

The open container cases are the most ridiculous. 10 so far. No one has warrants or records so there is no possible justification for putting these people through the system.

All the open container cases arraigned so far have been dismissed. but people have spent 24 hours in the system. One client needs a Georgian interpreter, which will be almost impossible to get on a Sunday night, so we are waiting to do that case.

We ended up getting the Russian interpreter to do that case so the client wouldn’t have to stay in custody another night.

One of the most problematic things about arresting people for offenses like this, is that they are fingerprinted whereas they wouldn't be if they were issued summonses as @NYCMayor says they should be. This means if they are not citizens they are now on ICE's radar.

Undocumented immigrants are particularly targeted for certain offenses, open container charges being one. Every person charged with this offense tonight was non-English speaking & required an interpreter.

After we did case after case like this, the judge said to the prosecutor, is there a reason these cases are coming through. He looked through the his paperwork, I said, no, no one has a record, no warrants. I said why are these cases coming through the felony part.

The judge who actually seemed as troubled as I was that we were arraigning so many low level cases (really I have not seen a shift like this in the more than 2 years I have been practicing in BK) made a joke to the prosecutor that I wanted to be arraigning more felony cases.