NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman is asking the county legislature to provide a stipend for his staff that are now fulfilling requests for judges in "after-hours" arraignments.
"For the past three or four years, my assistants have been appearing in off-hours arraignments for criminal for criminal cases," Seaman said.
These arraignments began when bail reform in New York State went into effect. As a result in changes to bail criteria, judges are leaning on assistant district attorneys more for bail recommendations.
"Historically, Assistant D.A.'s didn't have to be involved in that process," said Seaman. "The judges would set bail based on a request made by a police officer or relay to a judge through a police Officer from the D.A's office."
Seaman says the bail reform complicated the arraignment process.
"Assistant district attorneys are appearing regularly, either through a written request or through in person or telephonically, they're appearing at these appearances."
New York State does compensate public defenders for after-hours arraignments.
2 On Your Side reached out to Governor Hochul's office to see if the state does, or would, compensate District Attorney's offices for ADA stipends.
A spokesperson for Governor Hochul said "New York State allocated $40 million to assist with discovery-related expenses in counties outside the five boroughs of New York City, and personnel costs for ADAs are an allowable expense under this funding. Niagara County has received more than $1 million in funding from this initiative.”
WGRZ followed up with both the Governor's office and Niagara County officials about the $1M from the state and whether the rules of the state would allow some of that money to be used for what D.A. Seaman is proposing.
At a meeting of the legislative committee session on Tuesday, D.A. Seaman proposed his plan and fielded questions from the legislators.
Community Safety & Security chairman, legislator Michael Hill, said "some of the consequences intended or otherwise of bail reform, but here's another one that's going to cost us some money."
Minority leader Christopher Robins questioned the D.A. during the meeting about why this was needed.
"That's my job, I guess that the concern there is this is a new form of money line that we hadn't had before in dealing with the district attorney's office," Robins said. "That was basically at asking 'Hey, why do we need this?"
Seaman told Robins and the legislature about the historical context of the ADA's role during an arraignment and Robins understood the need.
"In county government, we're constantly saying that things that come down from the state all the time that says you got to do these certain things, and, it's our job to go about it," Robins said. "You hear the unfunded mandates and this would be something that might fall into that."