The Legal Aid Society, with Brooklyn Defender Services and Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, filed an amicus brief in support of Ms. Shamika Crawford, a Bronx Defenders client who was barred from her home and separated from her children as a result of pre-trial orders of protection in a case where the criminal charges were ultimately found baseless. As public defenders who collectively represent hundreds of thousands of low-income people each year charged in New York City’s criminal courts, our organizations routinely represented people like Ms. Crawford who suffered significant hardships as a result of temporary orders of protection issued without a meaningful opportunity to be heard, in violation of their constitutional rights. In our brief, we argued that the rote issuance of orders of protection violates our clients’ right to due process and detailed the experience of our clients.

In June 2021, the First Department held issued a landmark decision holding that due process requires courts to provide an evidentiary hearing to people charged with crimes before they can be subject to a pre-trial temporary order of protection that may deprive them of significant personal or property interests.