It’s a remarkable moment in city politics. At forums with the seven candidates running to be the top law enforcement officer in the June 25th Queens Democratic primary, all of them told voters in Jackson Heights in April they won’t prosecute people arrested for low level crimes.
These offenses include marijuana possession, working at an unlicensed massage parlor or riding electric bikes on the sidewalk.
District attorneys in the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn have already lightened up on prosecuting fare beaters and people caught with weed. But Queens took a tougher approach under former District Attorney Richard Brown, who died in May after declining to seek another term.
Brown took office in 1991 after serving as a judge. That year, there were more than 2,100 murders in New York City and the crack epidemic was raging. Michael Krasner, co-director of the Taft Institute for Government at Queens College, said the middle class voters of Queens wanted a law and order district attorney with an attitude of, "We have to restore civic order, we have to reduce crime and the way to do that is to be aggressive."
But a lot has changed since then. For one thing, crime is at historic lows. And New Yorkers have questioned the cost of broken windows policing and stop and frisk, which filled the massive jail complex at Rikers with low level offenders, most of them black and Latino men.
Although Brown helped create special courts for drug treatment and human trafficking, he also sent more misdemeanor defendants to jail last year than the city's other prosecutors. And there was the 2008 acquittal of three detectives in the shooting death of Sean Bell outside a club in Jamaica.
Today, the seven candidates running for Queens DA all say they’d investigate police misconduct. They support creating a conviction integrity unit, something Brown resisted. They also pledge to protect immigrants' rights and to diversity the mostly white staff of the Queens DA's office.
Three of the candidates, Rory Lancman, Melinda Katz and Jose Nieves, have joined the criticism of the controversial conviction of Chanel Lewis this year for killing of Karina Vetrano. The others have declined to weigh in on a case they could supervise if elected.
The seven candidates agree to stop pressuring defendants to waive their right to a speedy trial through plea bargaining, a practice unique to the Queens DA's office. They want to reduce the use of cash bail, and support, to various extents, a greater reliance on restorative justice and alternatives to incarceration. They'd all decline to prosecute many low-level offenses and one even wants to decriminalize prostitution.
The candidates include a public defender, two elected officials and four former prosecutors. In an incredibly diverse borough with more than 2.2 million people, it's unclear how much change voters are ready to embrace.
City & State has this guide to where the seven candidates stand on the issues. WNYC observed them at four different candidate forums, including one that WNYC's Brian Lehrer co-hosted in The Greene Space, and we have these additional summaries below.
Tiffany Cabán
At 31, Cabán is the youngest candidate in the race. She worked as a public defender in Manhattan and describes herself as a queer Latina.
She vows to radically reshape the office of district attorney through a more holistic approach to justice that considers the root causes of crime. She has said she'd apply restorative justice techniques, in which offenders try to repair the harm to victims, for violent and nonviolent crimes.
"I take issue with using the term criminals," she said during a candidate forum on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show. "Too often we’re using this binary system of good people and bad people and we need to lock up the bad people. But really what we’re talking about are just people. Right? And so what we need to do is take these trauma-informed, holistic approaches that get to the root causers of behavior. So that we’re changing behavior. Because right now there’s nothing corrective or rehabilitative about our correctional system."
Cabán supports ending cash bail for everyone and said people should be released to the fullest extent of the law with support services so they'll come back to court. She has voiced concern that some supervised release programs, such as ankle bracelets, are too intrusive.
Cabán supports legalizing sex work. She is endorsed by the NYC Democratic Socialists of America, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a national leader in the criminal justice reform movement.
Though she has collected more donations than the other candidates, she raised less money overall than some of her rivals. Her opponents claim she's too inexperienced to run the office of District Attorney.
Clik here to view.
Melinda Katz
Borough President Katz was previously a state assemblywoman, city council member and an attorney in private practice. If elected DA, she has said there will be no cash bail. She favors restorative justice, saying it can be used for violent and non violent crimes on a case by case basis.
Like the other candidates, she said she will not prosecute low-level marijuana offenses. Nor would she prosecute sex workers but said she would go after those who exploit and traffic them. She touts her experience working with community groups that understand how to curb violence and help immigrants.
"You cannot do it by introducing yourself to the communities and the groups on January first," she said, in a jab at her rivals. "You have to have a history of trust...because otherwise, how do you know which alternatives to incarcerations are the best ones for the defendants, or for the young people that we are trying to help before they even get into the system?"
Katz has raised the most money of all the candidates, but that includes funds she raised while an assembly member. Some of her opponents declined to take money from real estate developers, but she collected more than $158,000 from the industry. She is supported by many labor unions, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and numerous elected officials.
Opponent Rory Lancman has accused Katz of changing her position on cash bail. Her rivals claim she does not have enough courtroom experience to run the DA's office.
Clik here to view.
Rory Lancman
Lancman pushed for ending cash bail as chair of the City Council's justice committee. He wants to end it for all defendants, including those accused of violent crimes. A new state law, which takes effect in January, curbs cash bail for those charged with misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.
"It is immoral, it is unjust and it punishes people exclusively because of their poverty," he told voters in Jamaica. "The legislation that was passed in Albany still allows for cash bail for so-called violent felons. People accused of a violent felony. That’s about half the people sitting in Rikers Island right now 'cause they can’t pay cash bail."
Lancman said the city should expand supervised release, a way of checking in on defendants through phone calls and electronic monitoring before their trials. He is the only candidate to call for a new jail in Queens, as part of a plan to phase-out Rikers Island, because he said it's too far away for friends and family members to visit.
But this has drawn ire from voters who oppose a new jail. His opponents in the race support either smaller local jails, or prefer to revamp Rikers.
Lancman is supported by police reform advocates Gwen Carr and Valerie Bell (the mothers of Eric Garner and Sean Bell, who were each killed at the hands of police), and several labor unions.
Gregory Lasak
Lasak spent 25 years in the Queens DA's office, including a long stretch as head of the homicide unit. He was a state supreme court judge before stepping down to run for DA. He presided over several high-profile cases including Oscar Morel, who was found guilty of murdering Imam Maulana Alauddin Akonjee and his assistant in 2016.
When asked during a forum in Sunnyside if this case should have also been prosecuted as a hate crime, Lasak said there wasn't enough evidence. Malik seemed to concur and Cabán focused on preventing hate crimes before they're committed. But Lancman, Katz, Lugo and Nieves said it should have been treated as a hate crime.
Though Lasak appears less comfortable than some of the other candidates using terms like restorative justice and decarceration, he frequently talks about giving people second chances. He pledges to stop going after small crimes to focus on the serious ones, and would tell his staff, "We're trying to avoid putting people in jail, get with the program," he said.
Lasak supports ending cash bail for certain crimes but he also said New York should change its laws to make danger the determining factor for bail, instead of risk of flight.
He's supported by The New York Daily News, numerous law enforcement unions and is the only candidate who said he welcomed the endorsement of the Police Benevolent Association.
Some of his opponents have criticized rulings that were overturned when he was a judge, and his long career as a prosecutor. But Lasak said he quietly worked to exonerate 20 men, even though Queens DA Brown wouldn't formally establish a conviction review unit.
Lasak returned a $250 donation from "Central Park Five" prosecutor Linda Fairstein.
Clik here to view.
Betty Lugo
Lugo was an assistant DA in Nassau county, and a lawyer in private practice. She founded the first Latina-owned law firm in the state in 1992.
She supports restorative justice techniques but draws the line at violent crimes. "I believe everybody deserves a second chance and there should be compassion and mercy because sometimes the prosecutors do overcharge," she said. "But sometimes people get away and other people are hurt."
She also opposes legalizing prostitution, and has said she would prosecute those who commit the same crimes again and again - including fare evasion. She said it sends a message to others if someone is constantly jumping the turnstile "whether they have money or they don’t."
Lugo was previously a Republican before joining the Democratic primary for Queens DA and has said she might consider running on the GOP line if she loses the race.
For now, only one Republican is running unopposed: attorney Daniel Kogan.
Mina Malik
Malik was a Deputy Attorney General for the District of Columbia, worked in the Special Victims Unit of the Queens DA's office and also worked for former Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson. She spent two years as Executive Director of the Civilian Complain Review Board, but left after accusing its chair of sexual harassment.
Malik said she has practiced restorative justice during her time as a DC prosecutor. Doing it right, she said, is case-by-case and requires "bringing an offender and a victim together to discuss the harm that was caused, and figure out how to repair that harm to make sure that harm does not happen again."
Malik is endorsed by civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, and Karl Racine, attorney general for the District of Columbia.
Jose Nieves
Nieves was an army combat veteran who's worked for the Brooklyn DA, and for the New York State Attorney General as a Deputy Chief in the Special Investigations and Prosecutions Unit. He's prosecuted cases involving excessive force by correction officers.
He said his experience can help him identify a young person who's at risk of repeating a violent crime from one who made a mistake.
"Perfect example is possession of a firearm," he explained. "Just possession of a loaded firearm is a violent felony. And if you don’t look at the circumstances as to why that person possessed a firearm…you will basically tag that individual with violent felony for the rest of their life, denying them access to school, to jobs and to other resources."
He does not support building any new jails in the boroughs. He would not prosecute sex workers, but said "pimps are human traffickers."
The primary election is on June 25th. You can hear the candidates during their June 12th panel on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show.