Saturday, March 20, 2021

Demolition by incompetence at Rikers Island: Attorney-client privilege breached by free phone call system

 Rikers Island 

 

NY Daily News

A clerical error by a city contractor breached the attorney-client privilege for scores of New York City inmates, with more than 1,500 protected jailhouse phone calls between defendants and their legal advisors wrongly recorded, the Daily News has learned.

The shocking mistake, affecting inmates facing charges in Brooklyn and the Bronx, could compromise the court cases of nearly 400 defendants if their confidential conversations landed in the hands of prosecutors.

The system, run by the city-contracted prison communications firm Securus Technologies Inc., mistakenly recorded 118 calls with 29 inmates facing charges in the Bronx and another 1,450 chats involving 353 inmates cases in Brooklyn, according to several jail and city sources familiar with the findings of two internal audits conducted by the company this year. The erroneous recordings occurred in all New York City jails, not just on Rikers Island.

According to a source, human error on the part of Securus led to the legal misstep. The Department of Correction provides the company with a list of protected phone numbers to ensure inmates’ conversations with lawyers, social workers and other legal parties are specifically not recorded.

 As expected, de Blasio's stench is all over this. 

Now they got a constitutional crisis. Rikers is being shut down on purpose.  


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Because of human error by incarceration professionals, we have to move all the prisoners into your neighborhood, even though that wouldn't have fixed or changed this mistake."

Anonymous said...

Look at all that land that prisoners can use for exercise and other activities. The island also can be expanded and provide training and rehabilitation for the prisoners. How is it better to be in a jail on Queens Blvd? There will be no exercise area and no room for expansion.
Seems the main argument advocates have for local jails is that prisoners and families can be closer.Well they will also be closer to residents in those communities and that's why Riker's Island is a better place for a jail.