Black wooden paragraphThis year, the New York State Legislature passed, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed, an overhaul to state discovery rules, following the example of traditionally more conservative states like Texas and North Carolina. This article addresses the broad sweeping changes to the Criminal Procedure Law, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2020.

By way of background, the bill resulted from years of advocacy work by many community organizations and criminal defense attorneys, including the New York State Bar Association, the Legal Aid Society and the Innocence Project, as well as legislators who understood the problems defendants faced navigating a system that prevented them from having even the most basic information about their cases until it was too late.

A crime occurs. The police investigate. They obtain witness statements, pictures of the crime scene, video and audio recordings, fingerprints, blood and fluids. The material is tested. At some point, hours, days or weeks later, a suspect is zeroed in on. The suspect is questioned without an attorney, and, in some cases, arrested. A defense lawyer then enters the picture. The cops turn the case over to the District Attorney. Since the 1970s, and until Dec. 31, 2019 the District Attorney does not turn over anything to the defense lawyer except notice of a statement by the defendant. The defense can obtain the scientific reports and maybe the photographs; not much else is obtained until the day of the trial—no witness statements, no other recordings, etc. New York is one of the last 10 states where prosecutors can wait until just before trial to share evidence, which critics have long argued is unfair. This new law will finally change the rules.