Legal Aid Society

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LAS Lauds Juvenile Justice Reforms, Demands More Action

The Legal Aid Society welcomes a new law recently enacted by Governor Cuomo which will require police to videotape juvenile interrogations, but warned that legislation on its own is not sufficient, and more measures are needed to ensure that young New Yorkers’ rights are infringed upon by the police, as reported by The Imprint.

“If you turn on the video and there’s apparent good behavior by the police, that might tend to provide an air of legitimacy and acceptability to the proceedings that isn’t really so,” said Marty Feinman of the Juvenile Rights Practice at The Legal Aid Society.

Feinman pointed to a recent example of an interrogation of a young client that was recorded on video, but with no lawyer present.

“We feel very strongly that that video is a glaring example of a not-knowing, not-intelligent, not-voluntary waiver and a glaring example of methods used by police to manipulate youth into saying what they want to hear,” he explained.