Protesters rally outside Bronx courthouse against Hochul’s proposed changes to discovery reform law

Dozens rallied Friday outside the Bronx County Criminal Court, urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to stop her efforts to amend a law requiring the state to promptly and automatically disclose evidence against criminal defendants in New York.

In her 2026 Executive Budget, Hochul proposed easing certain provisions of the 2019 discovery reform law, known as “Kalief’s Law.” The law is named after Kalief Browder, a Black teenager from the Bronx who spent years on Rikers Island awaiting trial without access to the evidence against him for a low-level theft charge.

Two years after his charges were dismissed and he was released from Rikers, Browder died by suicide, struggling with prolonged psychological distress from his confinement.

“ Gov. Hochul’s proposals besmirched Kalief’s memory,” said Conrad Blackburn, policy counsel and staff attorney for the Bronx Public Defenders. “They would take us back to when we were forced to defend cases without seeing any discovery.”

The crowd of criminal justice advocates and legal defense workers chanted together, “We won’t go back! We won’t go back!” referring to a time before Kalief’s Law when the Bronx County Criminal Court saw thousands of misdemeanor cases pending for over a year, prompting public defenders to sue in 2016.

The issue has already proved controversial in Albany. Both the State Assembly and the State Senate rejected the governor’s efforts to rollback discovery reforms, leaving her proposals out of their budget responses presented on Tuesday.

The changes would relax the current requirements to hand over all evidence related to the case. Instead Hochul proposed allowing prosecutors to leave out evidence they deemed irrelevant to the criminal charges unilaterally, a change those at the rally said would defeat the purpose of the law entirely.

“ Those are not ‘tweaks,'” Blackburn said, referencing the governor’s description of the rollbacks. “It’s a full repeal of the law. These changes would take us back to a time where prosecutors can hide crucial discovery.”

Policy Council and Staff Attorney for the Bronx Public Defenders, Conrad Blackburn, spoke to protestors Friday, demanding that the state leave discovery reform laws passed in 2019 untouched, amid calls for a rollback from district attorneys and victims. Credit: Sadie Brown

Supporters of Hochul’s revisions, however, say that the initial reform went too far and that changing the law is a common-sense move that would ensure justice for victims while protecting the rights of defendants. Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark defended Hochul’s proposal in an opinion piece for the Times Union last month.

“These changes are not a rollback of reform or a return to the old laws that permitted disclosures on the eve of trial,” DA Clark said in the op-ed. “We believe early discovery creates a fairer system and we are committed to openness and better outcomes for everyone involved.”

The proposal would also unlink a criminal case’s status to the state’s compliance with discovery laws, meaning that violations would not necessarily result in an automatic dismissal, something critics of discovery reform claim has skyrocketed since passing reforms.

Dismissals on technicalities are at the heart of the issue. So-called “open discovery” laws, like Kalief’s Law, ask the court system to balance a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial with concern for victims. In New York, 15 groups representing domestic violence survivors supported the changes, citing dismissals of abuse cases, in a letter to the state legislature Wednesday following its rejection of Hochul’s proposal in the budget.

“Dismissal of a domestic violence case for a late disclosure of a single piece of paper in a voluminous record — when that late or missing record causes no prejudice to the defendant — not only does not serve the interests of justice but often leaves victims in greater danger than they were in originally,” the letter, which was given exclusively to City & State, said.

Protesters at Friday’s rally, including James Inniss, Public Safety Coordinator at New York Communities for Change, accused politicians of exploiting domestic violence survivors to advance harmful changes to evidence-sharing laws.

Protestors chanted, “We won’t go back! We won’t go back!” Friday during a rally in front of the Bronx County Court, which aims to preserve the law requiring timely evidence sharing with those charged with a crime. Credit: Sadie Brown

“ Pain for some people is not your little prize to dangle out in front of people,” Inniss said “If you want to help domestic violence survivors, put programs in place to actually help them, and not just keep people locked up because you don’t have evidence.”

Advocates for Kalief’s Law said that victims and defendants aren’t the only people harmed by delayed and incomplete discovery in criminal cases. D’Juan Collins, a civil rights union leader with Vocal New York, spent 16 months in pretrial detention at Rikers Island on a domestic violence charge he claims was fabricated, unable to afford the $3,500 bail.

Collins told the Bronx Times at the rally that his time in pretrial detention was traumatic for him, but also for his loved ones.

“It literally tore my family apart,” Collins said. “My son came up in the foster care system. He was illegally removed and placed with a stranger over his own family.”

Collins fought the case against him for years and told the Bronx Times that he ultimately pled guilty to misdemeanor assault and criminal contempt in July of 2024.

When speaking at the rally Friday, Collins equated rolling back discovery protections with maintaining the power dynamics of the status quo.

“Hochul, if you intend to rollback discovery laws then you’re telling the people of New York that you’re not like us,” Collins said, sending a message to the governor. “Let’s not let those lives who have sacrificed their lives be in vain.”