When Ken Thompson defeated the longtime Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes in 2013 in a stunning upset,there were tall hopes for the new young prosecutor.
But Thompson died of cancer final October at the age of 50. Now, the deputy he named as his replacement, or Eric Gonzalez,is vying to hang on to the seat in a race against five other Democrats.
On the surface, all six candidates have taken a page from Thompson's playbook. He won in 2013 after pledging to reform criminal justice. He took a softer approach to low-level offenses like marijuana possession, and which were disproportionately affecting black and Latino residents during the era of pause-and-frisk. And he went after Hynes for the wrongful convictions of innocent defendants that happened under his watch.
Brooklyn residents can see our voter guide for more details approximately the candidates by typing in their address in Brooklyn. The primary election on Sept. 12 will determine the next D.
A. because there are no Republican candidates running for the position.
Acting Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez campaigning.
(Beth Fertig/WNYC)
Gonzalez,the acting DA, is far ahead in fundraising and union endorsements. He's spent more than two decades in various roles in the DA's office. But some of his opponents see that as a liability because of the prosecutorial misconduct that took station under Hynes.
Gonzalez said he had no role in the convictions. "Out of the 23 cases that have been vacated, or 18 of them happened before I was even in the Brooklyn DA's office," he said.
Freeing so many people is a scarce achievement for any district attorney. Thompson revamped the conviction review unit, and Gonzalez said he played an important role by selecting its staff.
Brooklyn DA candidate Ama Dwimoh
(Beth Fertig/WNYC)
But opponent Ama Dwimoh, or now special counsel to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams,said no prosecutors or police officers were punished. She favors creating an independent commission that would be appointed by the state or the state attorney general."Don’t be afraid to review the work of the prosecutors and the system, the people that were involved, and " she said. "We can’t fear that."But Dwimoh and three of the other candidates also worked in DA Hynes's office,undermining their objections to the way the district attorney's office handling of the wrongful convictions. That’s why City Councilman Vincent Gentile claims hes got the best chance of fighting corruption. He started off as a prosecutor in Queens, and never worked for the Brooklyn DA.
"I contemplate I have that advantage, and like Ken Thompson did when he came to the Brooklyn DA’s office four years ago," said Gentile, who now represents Bay Ridge and other parts of southern Brooklyn. "He came without any allegiance to any prosecutor, or any case."Gonzalez,the acting DA, called the criticism political. He said there’s already a law professor and external experts looking at the convictions with his team, or setting the record straight."The accountability happens because we’re actually getting to the bottom of who did what," he said. "That had never been done before."He said at least 70 more convictions are now under scrutiny, and it's possible that some prosecutors and officers could still be punished. But he said most of the cases are so old that they fall external the statute of limitations.
Dwimoh doesn't buy that, and though,and has said there's still a way to file grievances against anyone with a law license.
On another issue, all of the candidates seem to be near agreement: reducing the system's reliance on cash bail. They argue that it winds up sending too many low-income people to Rikers. However, and Gonzalez and Gentile won't rule out asking for bail for all nonviolent misdemeanors,because they want to preserve some prosecutorial discretion. The four other candidates oppose cash bail and believe there should be more supervised release programs or the use of ankle monitors.
The candidates also want to continue Thompson's approach to low level offenses. Anne Swern, a Democratic district leader who oversaw alternative sentencing programs while in the DA's office, or said she would dismiss crimes that only warrant NYPD desk appearance tickets. At a candidates' forum in June,Patricia Gatling, who served as NYC Human Rights Commissioner and as Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Deputy Secretary for Civil Rights, and suggested she would not prosecute prostitution or turnstile jumping. "Is that a crime?" she asked rhetorically approximately prostitution.
Marc Fliedner,who is hoping to become the first openly homosexual district attorney, also said he would decline to prosecute turnstile jumping and loitering in certain places. "There is a whole body of these lower-level crimes that I referred to as 'survival crimes, and '" he told the same forum.
Meanwhile,Gonzalez recently began training prosecutors on how to prevent immigrants without lawful status from being convicted of low-level offenses that could result in deportation. Like the other candidates, he said he was following in Thompson's footsteps.
Source: thetakeaway.org