On Tuesday night, Gothamist/WNYC and CUNY Law hosted a forum for nine candidates running to become the next Manhattan District Attorney in 2021. All nine pledged to end the “trial tax,” the practice of seeking longer sentences for those who refuse to take plea deals pre-trial. They also promised to release the entirety of the Manhattan District Attorney’s internal records on NYPD officers with potential honesty issues (as of now, Manhattan DA Cy Vance Jr. has released some of those records, following a Freedom of Information Law request by Gothamist/WNYC).
The main point of contention centered on the issue of gang conspiracy cases, which activists have criticized for rounding up large numbers of Black and Latino youth.
Several of the candidates, mostly former prosecutors, said gang conspiracy prosecutions should be used more narrowly than has been the case under the current administration.
Alvin Bragg, Tali Farhadian Weinstein, Lucy Lang, Liz Crotty, Diana Florence, and Tahanie Aboushie all said that they would take on such cases to some degree, though they made distinctions about who they would target and how they would use them.
Janos Marton, Dan Quart, and Eliza Orlins said they would end the practice altogether.
DA Vance did not participate in the 90 minute discussion, and has not yet publicly confirmed if he will be running for re-election.
