As national leaders are talking criminal justice reform and how to reduce mass incarceration, New York City is facing a nightmare scenario: A judge gives a break to a drug addict with a lengthy rap sheet, only to see him face charges for killing a police officer months later.
That's what happened in the case of Tyrone Howard, who is accused of fatally shooting Officer Randolph Holder this week. Now the judge who put Howard into a diversion program, Edward McLaughlin, is speaking out.
McLaughlin, who has been a judge for more than 30 years, said there's a groundswell against jailing drug offenders, and that many people are seeking alternatives to incarceration.
Howard was arrested along with 18 others a year ago for various drug offenses at the East River Houses. McLaughlin said none of them had violent crime convictions on their records.
Howard was a drug addict and low-level drug offender. He'd already been in and out of prison, which hadn't seemed to reform his behavior, and the judge figured a diversion program could offer a hope of rehabilitation. So when Howard's lawyer asked for drug treatment, McLaughlin said: "I've decided, out of frustration and exasperation, why not?"
The city had about 19,000 felony drug arrests in 2012 — the latest year for which information is available — and those arrests led to nearly 6,000 indictments. Of those, only 731 defendants were admitted into drug court and some kind of diversion.
In this interview, WNYC's Julianne Welby talks with WNYC's Criminal Justice Reporter Robert Lewis about Judge McLaughlin's defense of his decision to put Howard into a diversion program, and to WNYC's Urban Affairs Reporter Cindy Rodriguez, who puts these diversion programs into context.