New York state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has remained one of the most steadfast and prominent supporters of the state measures that largely ended cash bail for many criminal charges.

And as the law has become a flashpoint in a larger debtate over crime and public safety in New York statewide, Heastie has decried how the law has been blamed — in his view unfarily — for rising violence. 

Heastie on Monday at an event outside Albany said he is supportive of providing judges with more training to implement the law — backing up another defender of the current version of the measure, Gov. Kathy Hochul. 

"Anything that gets people to have a better understanding of the law and the options in dispensing the law, I'm all for that," he said. 

Hochul and Heastie have both defended the current status of the bail law as the election season heats up. Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin, a Long Island congressman, has vowed to rollback the bail law if elected and remove from office prosecutors he has said are not aggressively pursuing criminal convictions, including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. 

Hochul earlier this year successfully pushed for changes to the law, expanding it to include instances in which a person has prior offenses and made additional gun charges eligible for bail requirements. But Democrats in Albany have resisted calls from Republicans to include a "dangerousness" standard. 

At the same time, prominent Democrats, including New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Albany County District Attorney David Soares, have called for changes to the slate of criminal justice law measures approved at the Capitol in recent years, including bail and an overhaul of juvenile justice law that raised the age of criminal responsibility. 

"When you look at many of the cases that have been raised by the Albany County DA, my own mayor, when you peel back the layer the judges did have discretion," Heastie said. 

The speaker once again did not rule out holding a special session at some point before the year is out, but insisted he is taking a data-driven approach to the criminal justice issue. 

"I still haven't received anything from Mayor Adams in terms of paperwork," he said.