New York state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, one of the “three people in a room” who hammer out the contours of a state budget, announced Tuesday that progress was being made on one of the stickier issues holding up the spending plan: Discovery.

He told Capital Tonight that over the last four days, he and his staff, working with the five New York City district attorneys, came up with a framework of a deal on the issue that he presented to his conference Tuesday.

“We really tried to tackle what the district attorneys said were issues,” he said. “Dismissals that were inconsequential, duplicative or something administrative.”

Discovery is the formal process of exchanging information about witnesses and evidence between the prosecution and the defense in a case that they’ll present at a trial. It’s been amended multiple times since it was overhauled in 2019. 

Current law requires prosecutors to disclose evidence that is “related” and “relevant” to the case, but Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal would require prosecutors to only share evidence that is “relevant."

According to Heastie, this is precisely where the compromise came in. 

“We tried to focus on things that were related to the charges so that was a good area of compromise,” he said. 

According to the speaker, the 2023 Court of Appeals case People v. Bay was integral to the conversations with districts attorneys. Bay clarified that the 2019 discovery law never required the “perfect prosecutor,” only a diligent prosecutor. It also outlined the factors that the court considered to prove “diligence."

“I will say that a lot of, let’s say, the framework we came up with dealt with People v. Bay. That Court of Appeals decision was a 7-0 decision, by the way,” Heastie noted. “So, we compromised on using People v. Bay as a framework, but we also took into [account] some of the things that the DAs considered, like, how much a late discovery can hinder [a case].”

Heastie told Capital Tonight that the Assembly Democratic Conference, which he leads, still has certain concerns. 

“But, as I say, always in the world of compromise, sometimes to get something you have give something. Pretty much the conference is OK in moving forward,” he said. 

Sources told Capital Tonight that the state Senate has also conferenced the changes to discovery and most of the Democratic conference was amenable to those changes.

It was clear during the conversation with Capital Tonight that the speaker remains frustrated with the budget process, in which executives have tremendous power, as well as how newspaper editorial boards are framing the issue. 

“We’ve had no fiscal discussions because the governor has made it clear we’re not doing anything until we resolve discovery and issues of involuntary commitment,” he said. “Unfortunately, a lot of editorial boards around the state think this is a good idea.”

He noted that New York public schools, which hold school budget votes in May, cannot prepare their budgets until the state has a spending plan.