On the heels of the tragic death of Kalief Browder, the New York State legislature took up the urgent and lifesaving work of reforming the state’s bail laws to end the use of monetary bail, reduce unnecessary pretrial incarceration and improve equity and fairness in the criminal justice system. This lawsuit sought to clarify two questions surrounding the interpretation of the "harm plus harm” provision, C.P.L. § 510.10(4)(t), a section of the bail reform law that was subsequent amended. The provision allows judges to set bail on otherwise non-qualifying offenses if the person accused was at liberty on an open matter at the time of the alleged commission of the new crime. Legal Aid argued that the overall scheme’s ultimate goals of reform: to reduce the number of New Yorkers who are detained pre-trial because they are too poor to buy their liberty, and to provide a heightened degree of due process to those at risk of losing their liberty prior to a finding of guilt, mandated a limited reading of those implicated by the provision.

This case specifically asked New York’s highest court to determine whether the statutory language, "released under conditions," meant to include individuals who had been released after posting cash bail, as opposed to those who were released exclusively under non-monetary conditions, and what information has to be provided by the prosecution to meet the statutory requirement that they show "reasonable cause to believe that the defendant committed the instant crime and any underlying crime." The Queens District Attorney’s office had sought bail in the instant case without providing any documents to support reasonable cause or substantive details about the defendant’s actual conduct alleged, injuries sustained (if any), or the complaining witness(es).

On June 17, 2025, the Court of Appeals ruled that bail constitutes a condition of release within the meaning of CPL 510.10(4)(t), as a defendant is only permitted to remain at liberty if they meet that financial condition. A concurring opinion agreed that conditions as used in 510.10(4)(t) included bail but criticized what they saw as an overly broad majority opinion. Both the majority and concurring opinions were entirely silent on the issue of the reasonable cause requirement.

This litigation was brought by attorneys in Criminal Law Reform’s Decarceration Project.