New York will make it easier for a defendant to challenge a wrongful conviction even in cases where they have already pleaded guilty — if Gov. Kathy Hochul signs a newly passed bill into law.
The Democrat-led state Assembly voted largely along party lines on Tuesday to pass the measure that would overhaul the state’s process for overturning convictions when new evidence comes to light, which supporters say would help clear innocent people who may be behind bars or carry a wrongful conviction on their record.
But the bill — which the state Senate passed earlier this month — is not a done deal. It will next head to Hochul, a Democrat who has not taken a public position on the measure and is likely to face a lobbying effort from prosecutors who are hoping she vetoes it.
“I’ll be looking at all bills very closely with my team and analyzing them and doing the right thing,” Hochul told reporters in Albany on Tuesday.
The Assembly’s 91-46 vote came in what amounts to overtime for the chamber, which was scheduled to wrap up its annual session earlier this month. But Assembly leadership summoned rank-and-file members back to Albany this week to take up dozens of bills left pending when the regular session ended, including the wrongful conviction measure.
The newly passed bill takes a number of steps to ease the process for post-conviction challenges, most notably by allowing more people who pleaded guilty to a crime to petition a court to reconsider their conviction.
Under current law and through court precedent, if a defendant pleads guilty in New York, they can only challenge their conviction if new DNA-related evidence is uncovered.
If signed by Hochul, the bill would expand that to other types of evidence, such as an expert who later backtracks on their testimony or a technological advancement that calls a prior piece of evidence into question.
The bill — sponsored by Assemblymember Jeffrion Aubry of Queens and Sen. Zellnor Myrie of Brooklyn — would also…
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