Report on legislation to create a statewide prosecutorial conduct commission to investigate and discipline prosecutorial conduct

SUMMARY 

The Professional Discipline Committee (Devika Kewalramani, Chair) analyzed a state bill that would, if enacted, create a prosecutorial misconduct commission (the Commission) for the purpose of providing oversight and discipline over New York State prosecutors. While reserving for another time any opinion on whether such a commission could be appropriate or beneficial if properly constituted, the Committee’s report critiques the bill in its current form as confusing and procedurally flawed. Among other things, the bill provides for investigation and discipline by the Commission of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in a manner that parallels the functions of the State’s attorney disciplinary agencies without specifically allocating functions between them or otherwise addressing this apparent overlap in jurisdiction; and it also empowers the Commission to admonish, censure or remove a prosecutor from office, and provides that such decisions be reviewed by the Court of Appeals, without addressing the apparent conflict between these statutory powers and provisions of the New York State Constitution which give the Governor sole power to remove district attorneys from office under certain circumstances.

Originally Issued March 2016; Reissued June 2016 

BILL INFORMATION

A.1131-B (AM Perry) / S.24-B (Sen. DeFrancisco) – establishes the commission on prosecutorial conduct (NYS 2015-16)