The Legal Aid Society filed two amicus briefs in opposition to law enforcement efforts to deny New Yorkers access to critical law officer disciplinary records. In June 2020, the New York legislature repealed the Police Secrecy Law 50-a (Section 50-a), which broadly prevented public access to the disciplinary records of police, corrections officers, and firefighters. Our first amicus brief was filed in opposition to a preliminary injunction sought by police and firefighter unions to prevent the disclosure of misconduct records before a district court judge, and our second was filed in opposition to the union’s efforts to restrain the New York Civil Liberties Union from publishing disciplinary records before the Second Circuit.

In August 2020, a district judge denied the unions’ motion for a preliminary injunction, a decision affirmed by the Second Circuit in February 2021. The Second Circuit also denied the unions’ request for a stay, allowing NYCLU to publish its database of misconduct records on August 20, 2020, available here. View Legal Aid’s Law Enforcement Lookup tool here.