Albany — Governor Kathy Hochul is asking judges across New York State, “Are You doing your part here?” That question part of her response to Donald Trump’s Executive Order on bail reform, threatening federal funding to States and Cities with what he calls “cashless bail” policies.
Despite the implementation of 2019 criminal justice reform that increased opportunity for “cashless bail”, Governor Hochul, citing the several changes made since then increases a judge’s discretion, says President Trump doesn’t understand New York’s policies, and that the State does not have “cashless bail”.
Recently in response to the President’s Executive Order, the Governor saying she doesn’t understand why judges haven’t used. the discretion she’d given them to keep someone behind bars when they’ve committed certain crimes.
We’ve asked a variety of voices about the topic, each with their own perspective on a judge’s impact on bail reform.
Since 2019, when someone is accused of a crime, we’ve been hearing a variety of law enforcement agencies, in their press releases, include a caveat saying something to the degree of, “because of New York’s bail reform policies, ___ was released with an appearance ticket.”
A version of that was actually said by a judge, who was presiding over the case in the burglary of Lola Saratoga in August 2024.
In that case, the Judge Wait said before trial he had to release the defendants without bail due to policies in “The great State of New York”.
In April of 2025 CBS6’s Tom Eschen spoked with former Saratoga County Judge James Murphy about that case specifically.
Tom Eschen: “Is that a political statement of allowing them to be out on bail?”
Judge Murphy: “Well, I think it’s not necessarily a political statement. It’s the reality on the ground, right? I mean, the judge could not hold those defendants.”
Tom Eschen: “Why didn’t he look at those factors? They lived outside the area. They did something bad… they had priors that they could have been looked into, right? But didn’t. Why wasn’t that considered?”
Judge Murphy: “Because in burglary, third degree cases like those are businesses, burglary two is house burglary. You’re not permitted to hold defendants no matter what, unless there are certain things like injury to someone in particular or some identifiable cause. But under a burglary of the Lola, for example, those defendants had to be released, given what the judge knew at the time. So the judge was not happy about that, obviously. And I think we could say that the judge made a political statement, but that also happens to be the truth of the statute at the time. And, you know, do we need to reform that and look at that again? Perhaps we do.”
