MANHATTAN (CN) — Civil rights lawyers joined the Department of Justice on Wednesday in asking a federal judge to hold New York City in contempt for failing to comply with a court-ordered monitor’s orders to stem “extraordinary violence” in the troubled Rikers Island jail facility.
“While I am taking the contempt issue under advisement, I see a clear and unavoidable need for the imposition of new measures addressing fundamental vulnerabilities in the current system and structure of leadership and the policies and the practices for the Department of Correction, whether or not I ultimately find the defendants as institutions in contempt,” U.S. District Judge Laura Swain said at the conclusion of the two-hour hearing.
Swain, the Clinton-appointed judge overseeing potential federal receivership that would strip the New York City Department of Corrections of its control over operations of Rikers, advised the parties that, regardless of her ruling on contempt, they should meet and confer to start planning how to move forward toward compliance with safety mandates.
“The next stage of this case will require that we identify, implement and operationalize measures to ensure the quality, the tenure, and the effective accountability of the persons and entities in control of the department,” she said.
In the Wednesday hearing for their motion to hold the city in contempt, attorneys from the Legal Aid Society and lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office cited the jail’s repeated failures to implement directives on excessive force, facility security and on holding staff accountable for misconduct based on safety findings of a court-appointed monitor who has overseen the Rikers facilities since 2016.
Allen Shiner, an attorney for New York City Law Department, argued on Wednesday that there have been significant improvements at Rikers under current Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie since being sworn in last year.
The city is “committed to meeting our constitutional obligations,” he said, urging Swain to not find the city in contempt.
“There have been lots of good intentions over the years, but it hasn’t happened yet and how long do I wait?” Swain asked the city attorney.
Legal Aid Society attorney Kayla Simpson urged the judge to go forward with contempt because the monitor’s recommendations have been repeatedly being ignored by the Department of Corrections.
“Time and time again, defendants do not take the reasonable steps available to them,” she said Wednesday.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams presented a federal takeover in a letter filed in April 2022.
The letter cited a lack of specific details from the city and correction department as to how the monitor’s recommendations will be implemented, although the agencies say they generally agree with those recommendations — which include coming up with a “remedial scheme” to address absentee officers and those doing jobs that can be filled by civilians.
Jeffrey Powell, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, told Swain on Wednesday, “Contempt is necessary to move the department to compliance and a new day.”
“The record is largely undisputed here,” he said. “It’s telling, your honor, that defendants did not file any supplemental findings of fact.”
Swain did not immediately rule on the contempt motion at the conclusion of Wednesday’s oral arguments, but promised a written decision on the contempt motion “as promptly as possible.”
Plans are on track to close Rikers by 2027 and replace it with borough-based jails, the city says, but there is widespread agreement that the facility needs serious fixes in the meantime, particularly in consideration of 33 confirmed deaths in the city’s jail since Mayor Eric Adams took office in 2022.
“Chief among these vulnerabilities, is that leaders who are appointed by political authorities on an at will basis change at the will of those authorities — that can happen for good reasons or bad reasons or simply because of the political calendar,” Swain said. “In the meantime while all of this is going on, the lives of persons in custody and staff are in terrible danger, and those lives simply can’t continue to vulnerable to these such cycles in this way.”
A group of civil rights activists held a rally outside of the Manhattan federal courthouse ahead of the hearing on Wednesday afternoon, calling on Mayor Adams to immediately shut down the jail. “Until Rikers is closed, we need receivership,” the group chanted in a call-and-response.