To the Editor: For the past several months, police agencies across Ulster County have had ongoing issues with town justices and public defenders not being available to conduct arraignments. Some of those arraignments have required the issuance of orders of protections to victims of domestic violence. Unfortunately, because the lack of availability, officers, deputies and troopers have had to be removed from their patrol duties in order to remain with a person in custody. In a few cases they had to remain in excess of 10 hours waiting for an arraignment, because the Public Defender’s Office has failed to provide representation and the town justices will not proceed until such time as counsel for the accused is present. This requirement is part of the Counsel at Arraignment Plan, to be in compliance with the Hurrell-Harring Settlement Agreement and Executive Law § 832(4).

In other cases, town justices have not answered phones for when called for arraignments or they have flatly refused to conduct an arraignment for a court in another town. Some are citing the inability to secure a Public Defender and others just fail to uphold their duties.

On March 6, 2024, the Police Chiefs Association of Ulster County hosted a roundtable meeting consisting of the Ulster County public defender, the Ulster County Executive’s office, the Office of Court Administration, the Ulster County Magistrates Association, the Association of Town Supervisors, the Ulster County Assigned Counsel program, among others, in hopes of resolving this issue which impacts the ability of law enforcement to respond to emergencies due in part to our already-strained level of manpower being removed from patrol. This is a very dangerous game that is being played in an effort to have the Centralized Arraignment Part Court (CAP Court) instituted. One of the issues facing the proposed CAP Court is that the required paperwork had not been filed with the Office of Court Administration and the application is not ready for approval.

CAP Court, once approved, is designed to be used after normal business hours. It allows law enforcement agencies, who have criminal charges which require arraignment, to have the person held in a special section of the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center for a later arraignment. Twice a day, a town justice, a public defender and a district attorney will conduct arraignments with one being in the morning and one later in the evening. This will be a solution in the future, but this option is still several months away as there were a number of requirements that needed to be met before the CAP Court program could be enacted. In the meantime, this continued failure is removing officers from responding to calls and preventing victims from receiving orders of protections.

In Ulster County, only the City of Kingston maintains holding cells, which means that housing a subject in custody until such time as an arraignment is not an option. In incidents leading up to the March 6, 2024 meeting, several agencies were forced to pull officers, deputies and troopers from responding to call, so they could remain with a suspect in excess of 10 hours. This is creating a very serious safety concern as it limits our ability to respond to emergency calls.

On April 9, an email was sent to the Ulster County public defender again seeking advice on how to proceed given the continued issue of not being able to conduct arraignments. There has been no response to our request for guidance.

We have also called upon the Ulster County Comptroller’s Office to conduct a financial audit of the Ulster County Public Defender’s Office, to understand why they can not provide an on-call public defender, and why the residents of Ulster County are being subjected to additional expenditures of hiring 18b attorneys at the rate of $153 an hour for their failure to do so.

Additionally, we are consulting with the State of New York on behalf of our residents in an effort to compel representation, as now required and arraignments to move forward.

Each town in Ulster County maintains two town justices which are elected and know the duties and obligations of the office before seeking the position. The criminal justice system in Ulster County cannot be held hostage, nor can we in good faith allow it to continue to happen.

Scott W. Schaffrick

Chief of Police

Rosendale