Gov. Kathy Hochul Monday stepped away from budget negotiations Monday to make a public pitch for her preferred plan for changing New York’s discovery laws.

The governor is trying to weed out issues related to reforms enacted in 2020 that she argues lead to dismissals on technicalities. Her strategy involves tweaking standards for what items must be turned over, timetables for compliance and easing penalties in cases where compliance is less than perfect. 

“Let’s make some changes here, inject common sense,” she said. “Letting there be more understanding and conversation, and not an automatic dismissal because one piece of evidence showed up later.”

The state Senate and Assembly excluded the governor’s proposal from their one-house budgets, and both Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie have expressed openness to reforms but skepticism of Hochul’s approach.

As budget negotiations heat up, the governor’s proposal could be up against a pitch from State Sen. Zellnor Myrie, who is running for New York City mayor.

His proposal would open up access to police evidence for prosecutors to make their job more efficient but unlike the governor’s, it would not address timelines for disclosure, what needs to be disclosed, or penalties.

“We want to be balanced in how we approach this,” he said. “The prosecutor should have direct access to anything within the PD’s custody so we can make this a seamless process.”

State Sen. Julia Salazar chairs the Senate Corrections Committee, and told Spectrum News 1 that Myrie’s proposal increases efficiency in gathering evidence while not swinging the pendulum toward prosecutors.

“Ensuring that police departments provide the evidence in a timely way, I fully support that,” she said. “As we negotiate discovery reform, what is most important to me is the constitutional rights of criminal defendants.”

Hochul showed no interest in the alternative.

“I’m very happy with the plan I have,” she said.

Hochul has come under fire from groups like the NAACP and The Legal Aid Society, which are concerned her proposed changes will unravel the reforms enacted in 2020. Hochul insists that’s not the intention.

“Many of those reforms were necessary, absolutely necessary,” she said.

With broad support from district attorneys and surrounded by survivors of domestic violence Monday, she called on the legislature to rethink their resistance to digging deeper to prevent dismissals that she insists hit domestic violence victims especially hard.

“Let’s look at the application,” she said. “Is this what you intended? Is this what your legislators intended when you put this in place, all of these domestic violence cases thrown out? These are your constituents”

Those opposed to the governor’s proposal have disputed that an uptick in case dismissals is directly related to those 2020 discovery reforms, as she continues to make that central to her push. Many have put the blame for any appearance of an uptick on non-compliance by the New York City Police Department, which would be addressed through Myrie’s bill.

“Effectively repealing this key reform that has furthered justice while having no reasonable connection to public safety is simply not the answer. There is no evidence that thousands of domestic violence cases have been dismissed based on technicalities,” The Legal Aid Society said in a statement. “The Governor relies on cherry picked anecdotes, without documentation from cases where the NYPD failed to comply with the discovery law."

Meanwhile, A coalition of district attorneys from outside of New York City sent a letter Monday urging State Sen. Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to get on board with Hochul’s proposal.

“New York state’s current discovery statute has unintentionally resulted in an increase in case processing times and case delays, and actually keeps people incarcerated for longer periods of time,” said Rensselaer County District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly, president-elect of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York. “The current system results in cases being dismissed on technicalities. The discovery proposal in the governor’s proposed budget would improve the discovery process and streamline case processing time while also ensuring that defendants are provided with the information that they need to defend themselves.”