Relates to the evidentiary standard for evidentiary and disciplinary hearings

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Julia Salazar says this is needed

Under current law prison disciplinary charges will be upheld at a prison discipline hearing, and in a subsequent Article 78 proceeding challeng- ing the hearing disposition, if the charges are supported by substantial evidence. Under the current standard a person can be found guilty if there is any evidence that reasonably supports guilt, even if the weight of the evidence supports a conclusion that the person is not guilty. This legislation would change the requirement to preponderance of the evidence, meaning that prison disciplinary charges could only be upheld if it is more likely than not that the person committed the alleged violation. Other standards of proof are used in different kinds of legal proceedings. In a criminal case a defendant must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In certain cases, evidence must be "clear and convincing." In most civil cases the burden on the plaintiff is to prove the case by a "preponderance of the evidence," meaning, the weight of the evidence is slightly in favor of the plaintiff. The plaintiff can meet the preponderance of the evidence standard if 51% of the evidence supports their case. Prison disciplinary hearings frequently turn on credibility, in that a Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) employee alleges misbehavior, and an incarcerated person typically denies engag- ing in misbehavior, and may offer a very different account of what happened. With respect to violent altercations, what staff allege as "assault on staff" are often the incidents that incarcerated people describe as unprovoked assaults by staff upon them. In addition, people who are incarcerated frequently complain that they have been "set up" by an officer finding, or claiming to have found a weapon or other contra- band, attributed to the individual. Because the standard of proof in a prison discipline hearing is so low, it is difficult to impossible for an incarcerated person to successfully disprove allegations of misconduct. Yet it is inherent in the institu- tional setting of prison discipline hearings that credibility determi- nations are not made on a level playing field. Hearing officers employed by DOCCS almost always accept statements of their co-workers at DOCCS as credible and find contrary statements by incarcerated people as lacking in credibility. Any statement by staff that is accepted by the hearing officer as being credible can, by itself, support a determi- nation that an incarcerated person is guilty of misbehavior if the applicable standard is "substantial evidence". Raising the standard of proof in a prison discipline hearing, and in an Article 78 challenging the evidentiary sufficiency of such a hearing, from "substantial evidence" to a "preponderance of the evidence" will give an incarcerated person a fair opportunity to rebut charges that are not supported by the weight of the evidence, including fabricated and retaliatory charges.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.