Bail reform rollback: Over 100 law professors demand Hochul, legislature keep ‘least restrictive’ plan out of budget

By Ethan Stark-Miller

Posted on March 28, 2023

As the debate around whether to make even more changes to New York’s reformed bail laws heats up in the final days of state budget negotiations, a group of over 100 law professors penned a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul and state legislative leaders urging them to leave the statutes as they are.

In the missive, the law professors, who hail from law schools across the state including Columbia University and CUNY, blasted Hochul’s push to excise from state law the “least restrictive standard” — which compels judges to use the least onerous means for bringing defendants back to court.