The Legal Aid Society, New York County Defender Services, Brooklyn Defender Services, The Bronx Defenders and Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem issued a joint letter today to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie urging Albany to build on recent criminal justice reform successes by enacting other urgent and necessary reforms when session convenes early 2020, according to the New York Daily News. These measures include:

• Protect Our Courts Act – S.425 (Hoylman) / A.2176 (Solages)

• Ensure the Right to a Jury Trial for All – S.33 (Hoylman) / A.3462 (Lentol)

• Preclude Introduction of Confessions Obtained by Deceptive Tactics (The “Exonerated 5 Bill”) – S.6806 (Myrie)

• Increase Protections for Juveniles Interrogated by Police – S. 4980A (Bailey) / A. 6982 (Joyner)

• Expand Youthful Offender Protections

• The Safer NY Act: The STAT Act – A.05472 (Lentol) / S.1830 (Hoylman), Codifying Special Prosecutor – A.1601 (Perry) / S.2574 (Bailey), End Police Secrecy and Repeal 50-a – A.2513 (O’Donnell / S.3695 (Bailey)

• End Rogue DNA Databanks – S.6009 (Hoylman) / A.7818 (Wright)

• Repeal Loitering for the Purposes of Prostitution – S.2253 (Hoylman) / A.654 (Paulin)

• The H.A.L.T. Solitary Confinement Act – S.1623 (Sepúlveda) / A.2500 (Aubry)

• Require Jail and Prisons to Provide Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) – S.2161B (Bailey) / A.833 (Rosenthall)

• Elder Parole – S.2144 (Hoylman) / A.4319 (Weprin), Fair and Timely Parole – S.497 (Rivera) / A.4346 (Weprin), and a fully-staffed Parole Board

• Less is More: Community Supervision Revocation Reform Act – S.1343A (Benjamin) / Assm. Same-As # pending (Mosley)

• Restore Voting Rights to People in Prison and on Parole – S.6.821 (Parker)

• Enact Broad Automatic Expungement for Low-Level Offenses and Expanding Eligibility for Application-Based Sealing

• Expand Vacatur for Survivors of Trafficking – S.4981 (Ramos) / A.6983 (Gottfried)

• Driver’s License Suspension Reform Act – S.5348A (Kennedy) / A.7463A (Hunter)

• End the Lifetime Felony Ban on Jury Duty Service – S.221A (Benjamin) / A.4760A (Aubry)

In part, the letter reads: “With the 2020 session only weeks away, we respectfully ask New York State to continue this progress and prioritize and pass critical and urgent reforms to other aspects of the system, including policing, due process, prison and jail conditions, and parole.”

Read the full letter here.