Earlier this month, a machete-wielding maniac attacked three straphangers at New York City’s Grand Central Station. The assailant, the New York Post reports, had a rap sheet featuring more than a dozen arrests, including one for menacing with a sharp object.
Responding officers shot and killed the alleged perpetrator. But straphangers were once again left to ask: Why does the city keep releasing such obvious hard cases?
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The answer might have something to do with what the justice system can legally divulge about criminal histories. Consider the difference between the New York Post’s reporting on Machete Man’s criminal history and what NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch was able to tell reporters: the alleged attacker had “three unsealed prior arrests.”
The NYPD is subject to a court order prohibiting the use and disclosure of sealed arrest histories. So the public learned about the attacker’s more extensive criminal history only because a source was willing to divulge it to the Post.
Information about criminal backgrounds is crucial for voters who want to hold the system accountable for repeatedly releasing dangerous criminals onto the streets. It’s also useful for assessing the risk that a given defendant poses to the community. Indeed, criminal history—including prior arrests—is a key predictor of future offending.
The practice of sealing prior arrests has grown more common over the last several years. This is partly a result of the 2023 Clean Slate Act, which requires sealing certain criminal histories if the offender has remained crime-free for a specified timespan, depending on the severity of the crime. But it is also the case that in New York State, any case that ends with a disposition favorable to the defendant—a finding of “not guilty,” but also a dismissal, even on technical grounds—is sealed. Such dispositions have become much more likely since the enactment of the state’s discovery reform in 2020.
Since criminal history predicts future offending, we should want prosecutors and judges to have a complete picture of it. Sealing prior arrests makes this harder. According to a former New York City assistant district attorney who spoke to City Journal on condition of anonymity, “seldom do prosecutors acquire information regarding an alleged perpetrator’s sealed arrest records at the post-arrest stage.” With a few exceptions, “such records are off limits” without a judicial order.
Jim Quinn, a former executive district attorney in the Queens district attorney’s office, agreed with this assessment, saying that New York’s rules can lead to repeat offenders being treated as first-timers.
“We’re not talking about cases that were sealed because of innocence,” Quinn said. “Most of these cases were sealed because a defendant completed a treatment program or was given a break, or because the DA could not complete their discovery obligation on time.”
Sealing prior arrests is nonetheless a priority for criminal-justice reformers. They seem to believe that offenders will have an easier time securing employment if their criminal histories are hidden from public view.
That’s debatable. But regardless, it’s time for policymakers to consider a middle-ground position that doesn’t force prosecutors and judges tasked with keeping the public safe to make decisions without all the facts. New York State should revise its clean slate and other record-related rules, allowing police, prosecutors, and judges to access rap sheets while still keeping them hidden from civilian employers.
Lady Justice’s blindfold is a metaphor for the West’s commitment to equality under the law. Making our prosecutors and police blind, however, is guaranteed to produce injustice.