Грязь в судах
Lawyers and their clients rallied outside City Hall Wednesday demanding Mayor Bill de Blasio to address the decrepit conditions inside the city’s courthouses.
The lack of proper ventilation and pervasive grime is a danger to all who pass through the criminal justice system amid rising COVID-19 infections, said one Brooklyn public defender at the Sept. 1 protest.
“In my eyes it’s criminal, it’s negligence, it’s complete negligence,” said Spencer Smith an attorney with the Legal Aid Society. “Fifteen months where these areas were, for the most part, vacant compared to normal times and they really did not make any meaningful change.”
When the lawyer returned to in-person arraignments in Downtown Brooklyn in July, he said he found old cigarette butts left untouched more than a year after courthouses shuttered in March 2020.
“So that tells you how often they actually give it a deep clean as they like to say — it doesn’t happen,” he said.
The city’s courthouses remained in filthy conditions during the pandemic, with soot-coated air vents, stains, and moldy chairs littering the government buildings, the Daily News reported back in July.
Mayor Bill de Blasio falsely tried to pass the buck to the state’s Office of Court Administration (OCA), which runs the court system, but the buildings are owned by the city and managed through its Department of Citywide Administrative Services.
One shelter coordinator who was processed through the courthouse on Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn in April noticed little had changed in 50 years since he had his last run-in with the law — other than a new fingerprint scanner.
“I said to myself, ‘Wow, everything else is the same.’ 50 years from then to now it’s the same, other than the fingerprint process,” said Anthony Gantt.
The 71-year-old was horrified to find that he had to share his windowless cell with five other people, none of whom were wearing a mask.
When one cellmate suffering from heroin withdrawal threw up, they asked police officers for a mop to clean it up.
“They gave us a roll of toilet paper,” he recalled.
The legal workers and their unions demanded the city allow environmental health experts into the buildings and for the state to return to virtual court proceedings until the buildings are safe.
Отсюда
Ответчики и адвокаты вышли на демонстрацию против грязи в Нью Йоркских судах. Настоящей, не в переносном смысле. Несмотря на то, что суды не работали год, их так и не удосужились отмыть и там везде слой грязи, плесень и всё такое. Один сиделец 71 лет вспоминает, что первый раз он туда попал 50 лет назад и ничего не поменялось с тех пор, кроме сканера для отпечатков пальцев.
Можно не жалеть мелких преступников, но как быть с присяжными, свидетелями, да теми же судьями и прокурорами? Они ведь тоже дышат всем этим. Мэрия сперва отнекивалась, что это не её дело, а судебной системы, пока не выяснилось, что здания на балансе города. Может отмоют теперь. Был я в этих судах (и в прокуратуре) несколько раз - там реально время остановилось на 30-х - 50-х и запах соответствующий.
The lack of proper ventilation and pervasive grime is a danger to all who pass through the criminal justice system amid rising COVID-19 infections, said one Brooklyn public defender at the Sept. 1 protest.
“In my eyes it’s criminal, it’s negligence, it’s complete negligence,” said Spencer Smith an attorney with the Legal Aid Society. “Fifteen months where these areas were, for the most part, vacant compared to normal times and they really did not make any meaningful change.”
When the lawyer returned to in-person arraignments in Downtown Brooklyn in July, he said he found old cigarette butts left untouched more than a year after courthouses shuttered in March 2020.
“So that tells you how often they actually give it a deep clean as they like to say — it doesn’t happen,” he said.
The city’s courthouses remained in filthy conditions during the pandemic, with soot-coated air vents, stains, and moldy chairs littering the government buildings, the Daily News reported back in July.
Mayor Bill de Blasio falsely tried to pass the buck to the state’s Office of Court Administration (OCA), which runs the court system, but the buildings are owned by the city and managed through its Department of Citywide Administrative Services.
One shelter coordinator who was processed through the courthouse on Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn in April noticed little had changed in 50 years since he had his last run-in with the law — other than a new fingerprint scanner.
“I said to myself, ‘Wow, everything else is the same.’ 50 years from then to now it’s the same, other than the fingerprint process,” said Anthony Gantt.
The 71-year-old was horrified to find that he had to share his windowless cell with five other people, none of whom were wearing a mask.
When one cellmate suffering from heroin withdrawal threw up, they asked police officers for a mop to clean it up.
“They gave us a roll of toilet paper,” he recalled.
The legal workers and their unions demanded the city allow environmental health experts into the buildings and for the state to return to virtual court proceedings until the buildings are safe.
Отсюда
Ответчики и адвокаты вышли на демонстрацию против грязи в Нью Йоркских судах. Настоящей, не в переносном смысле. Несмотря на то, что суды не работали год, их так и не удосужились отмыть и там везде слой грязи, плесень и всё такое. Один сиделец 71 лет вспоминает, что первый раз он туда попал 50 лет назад и ничего не поменялось с тех пор, кроме сканера для отпечатков пальцев.
Можно не жалеть мелких преступников, но как быть с присяжными, свидетелями, да теми же судьями и прокурорами? Они ведь тоже дышат всем этим. Мэрия сперва отнекивалась, что это не её дело, а судебной системы, пока не выяснилось, что здания на балансе города. Может отмоют теперь. Был я в этих судах (и в прокуратуре) несколько раз - там реально время остановилось на 30-х - 50-х и запах соответствующий.